


Things In-Between

by psikitty



Category: Dragon Age, Mass Effect
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-04-27
Packaged: 2017-11-29 00:54:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 49,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680836
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikitty/pseuds/psikitty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fenders set during Mass Effect 2</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Cerberus Encryption Detected…..

Decoding File…..

Decryption Successful…..

Dossier: The Mage

Anders (No known last name. Cerberus files have been purged. See: File 818—Calenhad Base Incident)

-former Cerberus scientist

-expert in Reaper and Collector technology

A powerful biotic, it is believed that Anders stole Cerberus technology when he fled the facility he had been stationed at. Before he left, he was able to infiltrate Cerberus systems, and purge all records pertaining to himself, and the work he was doing. The facility was then destroyed, killing all Cerberus personal inside, and eradicating all work. (See: File 818—Calenhad Base Incident)

It is believed that he is hiding in Omega.

Note: Cerberus has put a substantial bounty on Anders’ capture. The bounty has been withdrawn for purposes of the mission.

Error….

File 818 Locked. Access Denied.

**

John Shepard blew out a breath and walked towards the steps that led up to the giant doors of Afterlife. He could never decide if he liked Omega or not. On one hand, it was filled to the brim with mercs, smugglers, thieves, and the soulless. On the other hand, they were kept under firm control by Aria.

Not that Aria was any better.

But the asari was swift to put her foot down, and everyone fell in line. With a single hub that the black market and the mercs could thrive in, it prevented a sort of chaos. John had always wondered if Aria knew the service she was providing to the galaxy.

He absently scrubbed his armor covered hand over his shorn hair. Maybe it was time to get it cut again. It was becoming a little too long for his liking. If the black strands became too long, it irritated him under his helmet. He didn’t care what he looked like with his hair so short that it was merely a shadow on his scalp. Function over form. He could either be a handsome corpse or alive and not care.

Thinking about being a corpse made him shudder. Fuck no. he wasn’t going to think about that again. He was reminded of his death often enough in his everyday life. 

But he did need to shave at least. Garrus wouldn’t stop talking about the fur on his face. Shepard had a suspicion that the turian knew exactly what human beard stubble was, and was just fucking with him.

He hoped.

As John weaved through the never diminishing line in front of Afterlife, he glanced back. Speaking of Garrus… The turian had what passed for a smirk on his face, or at least, John thought it was. Man, he was really getting off on walking through Omega, as if he hadn’t had every single merc and then some after his head. Archangel was dead, but Garrus Vakarian was still very much alive and kicking ass.

John rolled his eyes as he watched Garrus wink at a krogan Blood Pack member, as if Shepard and Garrus hadn’t killed their leader the week before. Beautiful, Garrus… Just beautiful. Why not hang a sign around your neck that said ‘I’m Archangel, and I’m alive, bitches!’?

For a sniper, he wasn’t subtle, was he?

Not that John could talk. He wasn’t exactly known for his subtlety either. He absently touched the Mantis sniper rifle on his back. Fuck, he loved this thing. If John could, he would cuddle up to it and sleep with it every night.

John’s thoughts stuttered to a halt. Shit, that sounded like something Garrus would say. Maybe the turian was a bad influence on him. Yeah… it was Garrus’ fault.

There was a tap on his shoulder that he heard more than felt, and his blue eyes swung to the right. Miranda Lawson, the woman responsible for John being alive, the woman who was going to help him take down the Collectors, and ultimately the reapers, narrowed her eyes at him like Garrus’ behavior was his fault.

She really needed to stop looking at him like that, like she was constantly disappointed whenever he opened his mouth.

“I told you we shouldn’t have brought him here. Bringing him back to Omega is just asking for trouble,” she said.

John could hear the thumping rhythm coming out of Afterlife. It was like the beat of a heart, which was apt considering that Afterlife was where Aria spent almost every second directing Omega. He glanced over and saw Garrus walking towards them.

“See,” John smiled. “Garrus is a big boy.” The smile dropped off his face. “I choose who goes with me on missions, Miranda, not you. We’ve been over this before.”

“And I told you I answer to one man, and he isn’t you. We’ve been looking for Anders for a long time. I mean to be there when you find him. We can’t have any screw ups.”

“Hey!” Garrus said. “If Shepard says he’ll do something, then it’ll get done.”

John touched her shoulder lightly. “There’s something you aren’t telling me about Anders, isn’t there, Miranda? You’ve been jumpy ever since I decided to come to Omega.”

She brushed his hand off her shoulder with an irritated look. “I’m not jumpy, I’m being cautious. He’s dangerous. It won’t be easy to convince him to join us.”

“Shepard might not be as charming as I am,” Garrus assured her. “But he knows how to talk to people.”

John gave his friend a quick smile, and walked up the steps to Afterlife. He ignored the bouncer at the front door, and moved passed him. God, he loved turians. They knew how to get shit done. Well, for the most part. He could see why some humans called them birds, with the crests that had spouting off the back of their heads like feathers, and the way their legs arched back. But John had been exposed to turians at a young age, following his Alliance parents from ship to ship. Some humans never saw turians unless it was on vids.

That was a shame really. Everyone could use a Garrus in their life.

**

When Aria T’Loak smiled, it never reached her eyes. If it did, then you knew it meant trouble.

Her eyes were practically gleaming with mirth.

“You want to know where Solus and Anders are?” Aria threw back her head and laughed. “And you brought the Cerberus bitch with you? You really don’t care if you live or die, do you, Shepard?”

John sat forward in his seat. Like always, he was seated on one side of the L-shaped couch, while Aria sat on the other—in the center. She had her arms draped across the back of the leather couch, like she didn’t have a care in the world. When John thought about it, she more than likely didn’t.

“Miranda is a part of my team. I don’t take it lightly when one of mine is insulted,” he warned her.

“Calm down.” Aria waved her hand in dismissal. “You need to lighten up. My offer of a girl still stands. Unless… Unless you prefer men. In that case, I can offer you that as well. Besides, I’m sure she’s been called a lot worse. I know I have.”

John refused to look at Miranda. Arguing with Aria was going to get them nowhere. Still, it made his blood boil. He might not like Miranda’s motives, but he was still in charge of her wellbeing. Miranda Lawson might claim that with her perfectly genetic body and intelligence, that she was above such petty things, but John didn’t buy it. He didn’t care who you were, insults were insults. And insulting one of his team, was insulting him. He owed her his life.

Against his better judgment, he glanced at Miranda in his periphery. She stood at the bottom of a series of steps, the flashing red lights of Afterlife shining off of her dark, shoulder length hair. All right, sure, he was attracted to her. She had curves in all the right places, and she didn’t hide them under her black and white Cerberus uniform. But he’d been down that road before, and even though it had been two years, it had only been a few months for John. He wasn’t ready to let go, not yet.

Aria spoke and broke him out of his thoughts. That was happening far too often lately. He would get lost in memories, in what was different, and what he’d lost. It was dangerous, he needed to focus.

“Mordin Solus runs a clinic down in the wards. He’s former Special Tasks Group.”

“You sound like you admire him,” John said, more than a bit surprised.

“That’s because he’s as likely to kill you as heal you. Just don’t get him talking, he never shuts up.”

Propping his elbows on his knees, John folded his hands together and leaned forward. “And Anders?”

“The same goes for him. No one knows where he came from. Just one day he showed up. He’s with Mordin in the clinic. Between the two of them and the mechs Solus has, they’ve managed to scare off any mercs that come their way and try to shut them down.”

She turned her eyes to Miranda, and her teeth flashed in a smile. “He hates Cerberus. I know that much. I hear they have a bounty on him, so he placed one in return. He pays for any knowledge of Cerberus agents on Omega, just so he can kill them personally.”

John stood up, his armor creaking at the joints. He was going to have to do something about that. He looked at Miranda, and saw that her face was impassive. Damn it! He knew she was hiding something. He’d had enough of secrets getting in the way of doing his job two years ago. Miranda needed to realize that he couldn’t always go into something blind.

“Thanks for your help,” he told Aria.

She shrugged and looked away, dismissing him from her mind.

**

“Almost done? Have to hurry, mercs getting restless, plague spreading.”

Anders placed the last of the canisters into the case. He turned and presented it to Mordin with a flourish. “Done! Now we just have to figure out how we’re going to distribute it.”

“Simple,” Mordin said. “Same way it was spread, ventilation system. Will need to get pass the mercs to do it. Might be complicated, can’t leave patients, can’t risk leaving the task to others.”

Anders grinned. When he’d been with Cerberus, he’d never had a chance to work with a salarian before. He had a feeling that Mordin wasn’t exactly typical of his species. Salarians looked like the aliens that humans used to think would kidnap them, probe them—usually anally—and then dump them back on Earth. He wondered if salarians really had done that at one point, or if it was just a coincidence.

Even with their solid black eyes, salarians could be remarkably expressive. Anders had learned quickly how to read all of Mordin’s moods. There were times, though, that Anders thought that Mordin said things just to mess with him.

Anders pulled out his hair tie, and his blond locks swung forward past his chin. He carefully scraped the mass back and retied it. When he had first escaped Calenhad, his hair had been ruthlessly short. It was just another one of his small rebellions that he was trying to grow it out, another way to show Cerberus that they didn’t own him. He absently touched his ear. He’d been thinking about getting an earring lately, just to complete the picture of a rakish man on the run.

“I could go. You’re needed here,” Anders offered.

Mordin shook his head. “No, same risk. Took long time to make cure, needed your input. If you fail and die, will take much longer to make more.”

“You have our notes,” Anders pointed out. “It’s not like you would start from scratch.”

“Thought of that, could use David for extra hands, would take time out from patients, though. Conundrum, risk patients in clinic to save the ones still out there, or save patients to wait to deliver the cure.”

Anders set the case down on the floor. “Well, we’ll have to decide soon. We’re getting more and more every day. People are dying, if not from the plague, than from looters and mercs that blame each other.” When he straightened back up, he noticed that his plain brown shirt was stained with blood. Great. It’d been weeks since he could leave the wards to buy new clothes. Now his last good t-shirt had blood on it like all the others. He wasn’t even going to look at his jeans.

For years he had worn the orange, white and black of Cerberus. He hadn’t had any clothes other than his lab uniform. One of the first things he’d done when he’d escaped, was buy as many plain clothes as he could, and ditched his uniform.

The lab they were in was as ragtag as it could get. Bare wires and cables snaked along the walls and floor, while tables were haphazardly piled with lab equipment they had cobbled together. Anders had found Mordin a year ago. He had come to Omega thinking he would be safe here from Cerberus. At the very least, no one would care if he splattered a Cerberus team along the walls.

Mordin had just started his clinic, and Anders had seen the good the salarian was trying to do. He had wanted a piece of that, anything to atone for the work he had done with Cerberus.

David came rushing into the lab. “Doctors, we have three humans just brought in. Blood Pack found them hiding in their home. They’re in pretty bad shape. I’m not even sure how they made it to the clinic.”

Sighing, Anders brushed passed David, Mordin on his heels. Well, this shirt was fucked anyway. He missed his scrubs, but they had been ruined long ago. Fucking mercs. Didn’t they realize they were doing as much damage as the plague?

Neither Mordin nor Anders noticed David looking at the case that held the cure, or saw him pick it up and slip out of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

When Anders had been with Cerberus, he’d had everything he could ever ask for in a lab. From equipment that not even the top hospitals on the Citadel had, to assistants that followed his every direction. In short, nothing was spared for his team’s research.

Especially lives.

He still had nightmares of the things he had done, of what he’d been a party to. Nothing he could ever do would atone for that. But if he could give himself even a moment’s peace, he would do anything.

Helping Mordin in the clinic was just a start.

Which was how he found himself in the clinic’s lab, washing blood off of his hands in a dingy sink. At least the water on Omega was free of contaminants. Fuck… Anders gripped the edges of the sink, and braced his arms while he watched the blood tinged soap and water swirl down the drain. None of them had survived. If they had been anywhere else, if they hadn’t been in the middle of a quarantine, maybe he and Mordin could have done something. But as it was, all three humans had died of their wounds—a couple and their teenage daughter.

Anders whipped his blood soaked shirt off, and flung it into the incinerator. This was bullshit. He and Mordin had what was needed to end this chaos, and they were hesitating. Well, no more. Mordin might not think that Anders could make it to the ventilation system on his own, but Anders knew better. Hopping from one foot to another, he slipped off his boots, each one landing with a clang on the metal floor. He shucked his jeans, and they shared the same fiery fate as his shirt.

In nothing but his black boxers, Anders went to a locker and hit a series of coded keys. The locker clicked and snapped open to reveal a set of armor inside. He pulled out the black jumpsuit and slipped it on, wincing when the zipper in front caught some of the light scattering of blonde hairs on his chest. With methodical speed, he pulled on his dark blue armor, with lighter blue lines that ran down the center. He had just finished suiting up, and was bending down to the bottom shelf of his locker to get his firearm, when Mordin walked in.

“Don’t try to talk me out of it, Mordin.” Anders checked that his pistol was fully loaded with heat sinks, before straightening and snapping it within easy reach on his waist.  “You saw what those vorcha did. We get more every day.” There was a sharp stab in his right temple, and Anders paused. No, not now, he needed to focus. It had been months since he’d felt the searching pain in his mind. Luckily, the need to pay attention to Mordin made the pain recede.

“No, need to go, but problem,” Mordin said. “Daniel missing, case with cure missing. Too much coincidence, believe he went to spread cure. Rash, not armed, doesn’t know how to protect himself. You need to find him.”

Anders blew out a breath. “Great, what else is going to go wrong? The way this day is going Cerberus is going to show up with a full team.” He gave an experimental flex of his hands and fire erupted from his fingers. He had taken special pleasure stealing experimental biotics from Calenhad before he destroyed the base. Cerberus had unwittingly helped him in keeping himself out of their hands. With a thought, the fire banked and died, and then ice crackled over his hands. He shook them, and shards of ice fell to the floor.

“Cerberus will not risk coming, too dangerous with quarantine,” Mordin pointed out. “Humans might be immune to plague, but not to angry non-human residents. Never wished to pry, but think you might need to tell me why you are hiding from them. Your biotics, not normal. Cerberus connection, hiding from them, but also kill them on sight. Good doctor, know what you’re talking about. I have several theories, no conclusions.”

Anders flashed him a crooked grin. “So… Mind telling me about your STG days? I bet you’ve got all kinds of stories.”

Mordin blinked. “Point taken, will keep theories to self for now.”

“Doctor Mordin Solus?”

Anders whirled around at the sound of a male voice. His eyes tripped over the turian and the dark haired man, to land on the equally dark haired woman. He cursed under his breath and reached for his weapon with one hand, while the other bloomed with fire. The three newcomers pulled their weapons when they saw Anders reach. Two pistols and sniper rifle were trained on him, just as he swung his arm up and steadied his weapon on the Cerberus agent.

“Miranda fucking Lawson,” Anders hissed. “Did Timmy decide he needed to send you after me now?”

“Timmy?” the turian said.

“The Illusive Man. Anders thought it was funny to shorten it to TIM. Then he took it further by calling him Timmy,” Miranda clarified. “Didn’t you, Anders?”

“Burned ‘Fuck you, Timmy’ into one of the walls before I blew Calenhad base up. Did you ever find it?” Anders kept his eyes locked on Lawson.

“We did. A lot of good people died because of you.”

“What I did was a mercy,” Anders said. His eyes flicked over to the other human before snapping back to Lawson. “You seem familiar…”

“I’m Commander Shepard. I came here to find you and Doctor Solus.” Shepard raised his hands slowly, and pointed his pistol away from Anders. “Why don’t we all just put our weapons away?” When Lawson didn’t obey immediately the way the turian had, Shepard narrowed his eyes at her. “All of us…”

Anders banked the fire on his left hand, and lowered his weapon when Miranda did. “Say what you want, and get out. I don’t have time for this.” The urge to burn them all to a crisp was almost a tangible thing. How much would it hurt the Illusive Man and Cerberus if he killed Miranda Lawson? But the reality was that he had been rash. The clinic was all the people in the wards had for help. As much as he wanted to kill her, Anders knew it would be foolish. Not here.

He still couldn’t believe they had just waltzed in. The people that worked in the clinic knew how he felt about Cerberus. Still, if they wanted to pretend they were playing nice, Anders could as well. This was the first time any Cerberus agent had ever tried to talk to him.

And make no mistake, Shepard was Cerberus. Anders remembered him now.

“Don’t think they came for the reasons you think, Anders,” Mordin said rapid fire. “Made no secret that you kill Cerberus agents on sight. If wanted to kill you, would have walked in firing, used element of surprise. Many ways could have captured you. Done none of them. Either very stupid, or here for something else. Wanted to see me as well. Should listen and then you must go. If it turns out to be trap, we take them out of clinic and kill them there. Not in front of patients, would be too traumatizing.”

Anders gave Mordin a grin. “Have I told you lately that I love the way you think?”

“Yes, said it yesterday when I told you that you needed to get some sleep. Been working too hard, detrimental to mental health, no good to patients that way. Might forget what goes where inside batarian.” There it was—that small lift in the corners of Mordin’s lips that told Anders he was telling a joke.

“Do you know Miranda?” Shepard asked, ignoring Mordin and Anders’ byplay. “I was given reason to believe the two of you had never met.” The last was said with a slight tone of accusation, and his eyes landed on Lawson.

“I was telling the truth, Shepard,” Miranda said. “I know  _of_  him. Cerberus has been chasing him for a year. All operatives know that he’s to be either killed or captured on sight.”

“So do several bounty hunters, thanks to you,” Anders added.

“Cerberus has rescinded the bounty.” Shepard crossed his arms, but Anders wasn’t fooled by the laidback stance. He could see how the man kept his feet just wide enough apart that he could easily move if he needed to.

Anders clapped his hand over his chest, and the fiber and metal weave of his armor snapped when his hand hit. He gave an exaggerated gasp, and his eyes went wide with awe.  “Really? Well don’t I just feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Hey, why don’t the five of us pop on over to see Timmy, and we can have a picnic in his Evil Overlord base?”

“I told you he would be difficult,” Miranda said. “We don’t need him to stop the Collectors.”

Anders’ hand slowly lowered. “Collectors? You’re going to try and stop the Collectors?” This… This had to be a trap, right? A well laid one where Cerberus would dangle the one thing guaranteed to get Anders to come along meekly.

Nodding, Shepard gestured at both Anders and Mordin. “The Collectors have been hitting human colonies. I’m putting a team together to go after them through the Omega 4 relay.”

Anders’ head was spinning, and he barely heard Mordin speaking. “Collectors? Cerberus must be desperate, willing to work with non-humans.” A slow smile spread across Mordin’s lips, and Anders began shaking his head in denial. “My assistant Daniel could take over for us when we are gone. But first, need to cure plague, can’t leave patients, horrible breach of oath as doctor.”

“Us?” Anders asked “I’m not going anywhere.” He pointed at Miranda. “They’re Cerberus. I don’t care what the great commander Shepard did in the past. Cerberus brought him back, and now he probably has a control chip in that handsome head of his. You can’t mean to believe them.”

Shepard lowered his arms so they hung lax at his sides. “Wait… How did you know—“

Anders laughed. “With the clearance I had, I could have found out whatever I wanted to, about anything Cerberus was doing. How do you think I knew what Ms. Lawson looked like?”

“He used his clearance to cover his tracks when he fled,” Miranda added. “Cerberus reexamined their clearance protocols after that.”

There was a flash of bright orange in Anders’ periphery, and he glanced back at Mordin. The salarian had his omni-tool open, and was waving it in front of Shepard. “Interesting. Many artificial parts, but much is still the same.” He lowered his arm and the omni-tool receded. “No chip.”

“I don’t work for Cerberus,” Shepard said. “Cerberus is only giving me what I need to stop the Collectors. If you come, you’ll be on  _my_  ship, not a Cerberus ship. I’m not going to lie, it’s a suicide mission, but I mean to bring back everyone alive after we blow the Collectors to bits.”

Fuck… Anders actually believed him when he looked in those intense, blue eyes. The question was, could he walk away and live himself if it turned out that Shepard was telling the truth? It was a simple answer, and it came to him instantly. No, he couldn’t. If there was a chance that he could use his knowledge to help in some way, then he needed to take it. He owed it to his dead team to see it through.

Anders rolled his eyes up to the ceiling, as if he was beseeching God for help. “Fine. But if this doesn’t turn out to be legit, Mordin and I reserve the right to kill all of you.” He lowered his eyes. “I’m serious.” He tapped his index finger into his palm. “I want it in writing. You screw us over, and we get to kill you, no hard feelings.”

**

Anders dropped his duffle bag onto the bed and followed it, flopping down on the mattress. Fuck, he hadn’t slept on a mattress in a long time. He resisted the urge to roll around on it like a contented cat. Instead, he stared up at the ceiling, and folded his hands on his stomach.

Finding Daniel had been the easy part. Shepard had been able to talk the batarians that had him cornered into leaving without bloodshed. Frankly, Anders would have killed them. It had caught him off guard. Since when had he become so blood thirsty? He gave himself a wry smile. Since he found out that everything he thought was true, had been nothing but a lie. The younger him would have joked, and tried to talk the batarians out of hurting Daniel like Shepard had. The man he was now, though…

He had to give Shepard credit—the man knew how to run a team. Anders had only been with them for a short while before he found himself responding to Shepard’s commands as if he had always been there. The turian—Garrus—was a wicked shot, and he and Shepard had spent their time complimenting each other as they took down one merc after another.

Even the waves of vorcha and Blood Pack hadn’t been the hard part. No, it had been finding out that the vorcha had been working for the Collectors, and had started the plague. Anders suppressed a shudder. He had fooled himself into thinking that the Collectors would never branch out like they obviously had been. He might be on the Normandy now, he might even have agreed to come along, but he still refused to give voice to the knowledge he had.

Anders scrubbed his hands over his face, and sat up. Glancing around the room, he allowed himself a small smile. It wasn’t much, with a bed, a dresser and a small bathroom, but it was connected to the lab, and much nicer than what he’d had. Still, he had to wonder at what price all this would cost him. No, he told himself. It didn’t matter. None of it did. He had to talk to Shepard and tell him the truth, or at least part of it. There were certain things that would never cross his lips, and were his burden to bear alone.

But he had been specifically sought out. Not because he was some amazing scientist like Mordin—although, Anders thought he wasn’t too shabby—but because of what he had been working on before it all went to shit. If he didn’t reveal what he knew, then he might as well have stayed on Omega.

Decision made, Anders stood up. He smoothed down his blue t-shirt, feeling how crisp and new it was. At least he got some new clothes out of the deal. That was something, right?

**

“You wanted to talk to me?” Shepard leaned against the dresser in Anders’ room. Like everything else on the ship, it was metal and sleek. Anders wouldn’t have been surprised to learn it was scratch proof as well.

Anders had only seen the man in his armor, so it was strange to see him out of it. Well… Not out of it, out of it, just wearing something different.  _Shut up, Anders,_  he told himself.  _Focus!_  So Anders focused on the fact that Shepard was wearing a Cerberus uniform. There, that stopped the lascivious route that his brain was going down. It was a standard Cerberus uniform, with short sleeves that had lots of pouches and pockets. It was colored in strict shades of orange, black and white, with some grey.

Anders sat on the edge of his bed, and rested his forearms on his thighs, his hands dangling between his knees. He jerked his eyes away from Shepard, and took a deep breath. This was going to be easier if he didn’t have to look at the man. “So… What did Cerberus tell you about me?”

“Not much,” Shepard sighed. “The Illusive Man doesn’t seem to like telling me about the people I’m supposed to be gathering for my team. I’ve known Garrus for years, so I don’t need to know more. But I’ve got a merc entrenched in engineering, that made a deal with Cerberus that I would help him with something. I’ve also got Miranda Lawson who thinks she runs this ship and my crew. Jacob Taylor—you met him when you and Mordin first arrived—I can’t figure out. He seems idealistic at times.  I only know that Mordin used to work for STG, and he’s brilliant. The dossiers that I was given on everyone only gave me the barest facts, what everyone is good at, and a little bit of background information.”

Anders looked up, and Shepard raised an eyebrow at him. “Is this the part where you tell me some dark secret, and I’m going to regret the trouble we went through in getting you here?” Shepard asked.

“Yeah…” Anders blew out a breath. “Something like that.”

“Out with it,” Shepard said. “You’re part of my crew now, and that means your problems are my problems.”

Anders laughed, and the sound lacked any mirth. “Now  _that_  you’re going to regret.” He rubbed at his chin, feeling the stubble that covered it. “All right. So you know that I used to work for Cerberus, correct?” He didn’t wait for Shepard to answer. “I’d been with them for years, straight out of college. I was shiny and new, completely naive in what I was getting into. Cerberus threw words around like ‘helping mankind’ and ‘making the galaxy a better place’. I bought it. I had heard about them, but I… I just didn’t allow myself to think I was making a mistake.

“So there I was, working in various labs. At first it was just biotic research, trying to find a way to make them safer, and stronger. But the lab I had been in contact with went dark one day, and I was moved off the project. I was sent to a planet called Calenhad—it was remote, but beautiful. There were trees there so large, that they could have put some of the tallest buildings on Earth to shame.”

“What did you do there?” Shepard prompted. Anders silently thanked him for having nothing more than mild curiosity in his voice.

“My research in biotics was useful. I had knowledge about the brains of several species. We… I had…” Anders hesitated. He had never told a single soul about what he’d done. Why was he telling this man he barely knew?

As he warred with himself, Shepard approached the bed and sat down next to him, the mattress dipping under his weight. “You don’t have to tell me,” Shepard said softly.

Anders shook his head. “No… I really do need to tell you.” He said it more to himself than Shepard.  “We… we were tasked with research on the Collectors and the Reapers. What made them tick, and what they were. It was slow going. No one had ever actually seen a Collector, but we had accounts through the centuries, sightings that started their myth. We also had various bits of their technology, nothing working—or so we thought.”

Shepard sucked in his breath. “You had Collector tech?”

Nodding his head, Anders stared resolutely at his boots. “Yeah… and Reaper tech.”

Pushing himself off the bed, Shepard stood in front of Anders, but he still wouldn’t look up at the commander. “What happened?” Shepard asked, and Anders could hear the tension in his voice.

“Reaper tech… It… does something to the mind. As long as the mind is sentient, it—“

“Indoctrination,” Shepard finished. “Calenhad… How many… How many had been indoctrinated?”

“All of them,” Anders admitted, his voice nothing but a whisper. “Every last one of them.” He finally looked up and met Shepard’s eyes. “You understand, don’t you? Why I had to do it? Why I had to destroy the base and kill them all? They weren’t… There’s no going back from that. I tried… When it first started, I tried to help them. But they…” Remembered panic and pain robbed Anders of breath and he gasped.

“Why were you spared? Why didn’t it affect you as well?”

Good question, Anders thought. Smart question, and the only one he would never answer truthfully. “I’m not sure. Maybe it has something to do with the experimental amps I have. To be honest, I hadn’t wanted to look too closely into it. It would require reproducing the same experiments that caused the base’s downfall in the first place. I… I don’t want to revisit that. Not to find out why I was fortunate.”

Before calling Shepard to his room, Anders had gone over and over exactly what he would say if asked this very question. Shepard had had contact with indoctrination before. He knew what happened to those that were exposed for extended periods of time.

“I just needed you to know why I did it,” Anders continued on. “Lawson wasn’t lying, but I don’t think even she knows the whole truth. I did kill my whole team, and destroyed years of work. I made sure Calenhad burned to the ground before escaping. I didn’t want anyone to pick up where I left off. But I’m willing to give you any information I know about the Collectors and Reapers if it will help this mission.”

There, he’d done it. Close enough to the truth to not be outright lying. Anders felt like a stone had settled in the pit of his stomach. He’d seen what the Reapers could do to people, and if the Collectors were working for them, then that was good enough reason for Anders to help, no matter whose sign was painted on the side of the ship.

Shepard ran his fingers over his freshly shaven scalp and nodded. “All right. Thank you for telling me. If it makes you feel any better, I would’ve done the same thing. I would like you to coordinate with Mordin and EDI. Start with mapping out everything you know about the Collectors and anything about the Reapers as well. EDI can compile and analyze it for anything that might have been missed.”

Anders’ eyebrows rose. “That’s it? Just like that?”

“Just like that.” Shepard snapped his fingers. “I’ve seen you fight, and you’ll be expected to go on missions with me when I need your expertise. Hell, we all have regrets, Anders. It’s what we do with them that counts.”

Shepard turned to leave, and Anders stood up. “Wait! I could also… um… take a look at the amps anyone has, and maybe make some performance recommendations. Nothing like my own, but… if you would like.”

“Thanks. That’ll be helpful.” Shepard gave him a smile and left.

As soon as the door shut behind him, Anders flopped back on the bed. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes until he saw bright flashes of light behind his lids. He could do this. Working in Mordin’s clinic had helped with his guilt, but this mission… this mission was really going to mean something.

Now he just had to survive it.

**

The moment Shepard walked into his room, he called out for EDI. “EDI, I want a scan done on Anders as soon as possible, and the results sent to my omni-tool. No one is to have access to your findings.” The room was dark, except for the iridescent lights in the fish tank that ran along the whole length of one wall. Nothing swam in it now, but John was going to change that as soon as he could.

“Yes, Shepard. What am I looking for?” EDI popped up on one of the small platforms that were scattered around the ship. The blue holographic representation of her was a little strange. Most holograms for VIs and AIs at least took on the guise of a life form to make it easier to talk to. EDI was nothing but a large blue ball on a cone. Maybe that was her preference.  Wait, did she even have preferences on how she looked?

“Anything that would indicate that he might be indoctrinated by the Reapers. I would like to believe that the Illusive Man wouldn’t send me someone that was indoctrinated, but I need to know.” Shepard knew that he risked the Illusive Man finding out he was looking by asking EDI, but he didn’t care.

“Running scans now. Logging you out, Shepard.”


	3. Chapter 3

Dossier: The Wolf

Fenris (No known last name)

-Powerful biotic (See: Cerberus File: 908)

Elven. (See: Elves)

Note: Very little data on his current whereabouts. Fenris was last seen in the company of a biotic named Jack. (See: Dossier: The Convict)It is thought that to find Fenris, one must first find Jack.

Fenris is considered dangerous, and especially hostile towards Cerberus operatives. Approach with extreme caution.

File: Elves

 

Elves are rarely seen outside of Khar’shan, the batarian home world. The batarians were the first to discover them, and as a consequence, razed their planet, stripped it of wealth, and enslaved the survivors. Not many elves are currently living today.

Their name was lost when their people and culture were destroyed. An elf is a human mythological creature, humanoid in appearance, except for their pointed ears. Humans were the ones to give them the name that they are now commonly known by. The batarians only call them slave.

Searching for Cerberus File:908……

File Found…..

Please Enter Password…..

Access Denied……

You do not have clearance to open File:908 Please see your immediate supervisor, and ask for the appropriate clearance. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please turn off your omni-tool, check that all connections are connected properly, and try again.

Access Denied…..

You do not have clearance to open File:908 Please see your immediate supervisor, and ask for the appropriate clearance. If you feel you have reached this message in error, please turn off your omni-tool, check that all connections are connected properly, and try again.

Did you enter your password in exactly? Did you remember that each password must have at least three capital letters, and twelve numbers?

Access Deni—

Anders snorted in frustration, and shut his omni-tool down. “Sorry, Shepard. It looks like they revamped the whole system after I left. I can’t get into it either.” He sat back in his chair and propped his booted feet up on the table. The mess was quiet, except for the dull hum of the ship. It was late, and if you weren’t on duty, then you were supposed to be sleeping. Anders laced his fingers together behind his neck, and tilted his chair back. He was too jumpy to sleep—he’d been that way for weeks now. At first, it had been because he was compiling all the information he had on the Collectors and Reapers, but then the nightmares had started, ruining what little rest he did get. He knew he was beginning to look like shit, but so far, no one had said anything.

Garrus had meandered out from the main battery when he had heard Anders and Shepard talking, and had taken a seat next to Anders to watch. “How did you get into the system before?” he asked.

“Easy, they let me in.” Anders shot him a grin. “I had high clearance, but it was relegated to my work.” He nodded at Shepard. “I’m not a hacker, sorry.”

“We could use Tali right about now,” Garrus sighed. “She would’ve had that file cracked open, and singing by the time she was through with it.”

“Tali?” Anders asked.

“Quarian,” Shepard said with a smile. “Tali knows all there is about any system. And if she doesn’t, just give her a little while and she will.”

“It’s almost as if Cerberus doesn’t trust you.” Anders clapped his hand over his heart. “I am shocked that they are hiding things about the people you’re supposed to be recruiting. Just shocked!”

Garrus laughed. “Are your delicate human sensibilities hurt? Do you need to lie down and recover?”

Anders closed his eyes, and laid the back of his hand across his forehead. “I do, maybe you should drop me off at Illium for a few months, book me a room at Azure, all expenses paid.”

“If Shepard’s doing that, then I think I feel a fainting spell coming on from the stress,” Garrus said. “Maybe we should book two rooms. Uh… far from each other. I would rather not find out that you’re into some kinky stuff.”

Anders winked at the turian. “How about I just tell you? Did you know that human males have something called the prostate, and when you—“

“Commander,” Joker’s voice broke out on the intercom. “We’ve reached Purgatory, and are awaiting docking instruction. I don’t think they get too many visitors here.”

“I’m on my way,” Shepard called out. He eyed Garrus and Anders. “Thank fuck. I’m already regretting having the two of you on the same ship.”

“Get rid of the human,” Garrus offered. “I was here first, and I’m more attractive.”

“Hey!” Anders’ feet dropped back down to the floor. “I’ll have you know that I’m considered very attractive to both males and females of several species.”

“Yeah,” Garrus muttered. “I hear that krogan males aren’t too picky some times.”

“See, that’s where you’re wrong.” Anders’ eyes sparked with a mischievous light. “You’ve heard about the quads right? You’ve got to be someone special in order to take all that up your—“

“Stop!” Both Garrus and Anders froze, and turned towards Shepard. The commander stared at Anders with an appalled look on his face that was almost comical. “What the fuck, Anders? If you’ve gotten down and dirty with a krogan, I don’t want to hear about it. In fact, you should lock that shit up tight, and never, ever speak of it again—even to yourself.

“But what will I do with the vid?” Anders asked, and his eyes were wide with innocence. “Fornax is willing to offer me a lot of credits for the rights. I’m going to be rich I tell you—rich!”

“Ugh!” Shepard cried. “I’m taking Miranda and Jacob with me to get Jack. I’ve had enough of you two to last me a lifetime.” He got up from his seat and walked away, muttering to himself.

“Does this mean we’re breaking up?” Anders called after him. “You’re dumping me for my sordid past, aren’t you? I knew I shouldn’t have ever told you, you’re so close minded!” He turned to Garrus. “You’ll still love me, won’t you, Garrus?”

Garrus laughed and held up his hands. “Sorry, you might be able to handle a krogan, but you couldn’t handle a turian. I wouldn’t want to hurt you.”

Anders wiped a nonexistent tear from his eye. “All of you are bastards to break my heart like this.”

He was jolted forward in his seat when Garrus clapped him on the back. “You’ll get over it. Who knows, we might all die when we go through the relay.”

Anders blinked. “Well, that’s a cheerful thought.”

**

When Anders saw the prisoner known as Jack walk onto the ship, he felt like the floor had fallen away. His eyes tracked the scars from implants, and various experiments that her tattoos could never hide. He knew intimately what had caused each and every one of them. His chickens were coming home to roost, and the chickens hated him, judging him with their beady eyes. Anders felt a hysterical laugh bubble up inside him, and he clapped his hands over his mouth to stop it. For a brief moment, he had the insane thought that Cerberus knew more than they had let on, and this was his punishment, to be confronted with his past sins and driven insane.

Holy shit, the woman looked angry. Normally, Anders would have been openly leering at a woman who walked around wearing a top that consisted of nothing more than a few straps over her nipples. The tattoos would have been icing on the delicious, bad girl cake. But the rage in her eyes, twisted her beautiful face. Anders had the feeling that if he even so much as looked at her wrong, she would tear his dick off and make him eat it.

And as much as he loved to eat cock, he really liked his dick where it was. They’d had good times together, and he wanted more in the future.

Shit, Subject Zero… Anders had found out too late—years later—what his work had done to her, and many children like her. He might not have known exactly what was going on, but deep down, Anders had known that the information he was being sent from Pragia, couldn’t have been solely tested on animals and in computer simulations. Using live humans would have cut out years of research.

Anders closed his eyes and winced when he heard that Shepard had promised her access to Cerberus files. Fuck… Anders knew what she wanted, and he could even tell her. When the base had gone dark and he’d been pulled from the project, Anders had breathed a sigh of relief. The work had been invigorating, and had led to breakthroughs in human biotic technology, but as his eyes skipped over the scars peppered over the neck and shaved head, Anders knew the price had been too high. He’d felt it then, deep in his gut, but like everything else he had done with Cerberus, he’d turned a blind eye.

Never mind ripping his dick off, she was going to outright kill him and make him suffer if she ever found out his culpability in what had been done to her.

Too many secrets… Too many things inside him, until Anders felt like his skull was full of bile and self-loathing. If Anders believed in a higher power, he would have thought that he was indeed being punished. Things had been simpler when his mind had been filled with nothing but the desires of another, and that wonderful song that could grow so loud, that at times Anders couldn’t hear or feel anything else. But Anders had fought for his freedom from the song, and from Cerberus. He needed to do what he had to, in order to make things right again.

When Jack left the comm room, Anders followed silently behind her.

**

“What the fuck do you want?” Jack whirled on Anders as they both exited the elevator. “Did Shepard send you to follow me to make sure I’m a good girl? Fuck him, and fuck you.”

The long corridor on the engineering level that the elevator had opened up to, had windows spanning the length of one wall. Behind Jack, Anders could see the shuttle bay. Shit, maybe this wasn’t the best spot to do this. She could fling him through the glass, and then Shepard would be angry that there was splattered Anders on the shuttle.

He attempted to give her one of his most charming smiles, the one that had never failed him before. By her expression and the way her eyes narrowed in angry slits, the smile must look as sickly as Anders felt—either that or she was immune. Anders was willing to bet it was both.

He cleared his throat. “Shepard didn’t send me. We didn’t get a chance to meet when you came in.” He stuck out his hand. “I’m Anders.”

Jack wrinkled her nose at him. “The fuck… You sound like a pussy too. I’m surrounded by Cerberus and pussy. And I hate both enough to not fuck ‘em when I’m desperate.”

Okay… Well, his limbs were intact, so that was a start, right? “Look I…” Shit… His mind wouldn’t stop screaming at him to turn around and walk away—quickly. He fought with his legs as they tried to second the motion and put thought into action. She was going to find out. Whether it was from him, or from that bitch Miranda, she was going to find out his connection to her. He would rather it come from him before Lawson took it upon herself to be ‘helpful’ just to spite him.

“Look I…” she mimicked in a high pitched voice. “Spit it out, and leave me the hell alone. Are you an idiot along with being a pussy? Do. I. Need. To. Speak. To. You. Slowly? Do. You. Know. Where. Your. Mother. Is?”

Now that was just mean. Anders crossed his arms over his chest, and his dark blue t-shirt pulled tight against his back. “You’re looking for the base you grew up in. I might know where to find it, or maybe I’m too stupid to remember. My mom forgot to pin a note to my shirt this morning.”

Her lips pulled back from his teeth, and it took everything Anders had in order to stand his ground. “How the hell did you know that? Who the fuck are you, asshole?”

“I told you, I’m Anders.” He braced himself. “I use to work at a Cerberus facility. One of the projects I was assigned to, was looking at and fine tuning the data we received from biotic experiments done on—”

When it came, it was quicker than Anders thought it would be.

The breath whooshed out of him as he was slammed painfully against the glass. Through the biotic field pinning him against the window, Anders could just make out Jack’s rage infused face. “You’ll tell me what I want to know, and then I’m going to rip you apart!”

This had not been one of his best ideas.

**

John’s fingers hovered over the keyboard to his personal computer. He had been avoiding it for days now, but he couldn’t seem to bring himself to not look. His room was dark except for the iridescent glow of his empty fish tank, and the light of his computer screen. He touched first one letter, and then another, and then rest of the name was tapped out in rapid succession.

Kaidan Alenko.

John closed his eyes as his search ran. He had made the decision not to contact Kaidan, and was firm in his resolve. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t stalk the man, and find out what he’d been doing these past two years. Was he happy? Was he healthy? Had he been promoted? Was he suffering under persecution like the others that had helped him with Saren had? Does he miss me the way I miss him? Had he moved on? Please, let him have moved on. Please, let him not have moved on. The questions wouldn’t stop plaguing John, until he’d been driven from his bed and to the computer. Fuck it if the Illusive Man found out. John was good at pretending his interest in Kaidan was nothing but professional.

His eyes slowly opened, and he sucked in a shaky breath. God… that hurt more than he had thought it would. Kaidan’s warm eyes stared out from the screen. He had never told Kaidan how he’d felt. There’d been no right time, no right moment. He’d had too many doubts, too many worries. And in the end, it had all added up and counted for shit. What kind of jackass would he be if he tried to get a hold of Kaidan now? What could he say? How could he explain that he’d died, and been missing for two years, but ‘Oh, hi, I’m alive, and do you care that I want to fuck your brains out, because I’m painfully in love with you?’

He didn’t even know how much of him was left human.

“Commander, you better get down to engineering.” Joker’s voice cracked over the intercom, and John started in his seat.

Shepard blanked the screen gratefully and got up. “Why, what’s going on?”

“Jack is trying to kill Anders, and he’s set part of engineering on fire. But don’t worry, take your time. Who cares if the ship burns?”

**

Had Anders ever thought that Jack was beautiful and deadly? Because now he was just leaning towards the deadly part. He held up his hand and fire erupted from his fist. Shit, if he wasn’t careful, he was going to ignite himself. His biotics were simple, but tricky, which is why they had never left the lab. Biotic shields around his hands and arms protected him from the flames. He used the shield to wrap around the fire and send the flames out in a ball. It was simple really, except it ate up a lot of energy to do it. Oh, and there was the risk of the shield failing and Anders succumbing to a fiery death. To get technical, it worked the same way incendiary ammo worked. A small, but rapidly moving amount of a mass effect field started the flames, but once it left him, it would burn out quickly if it didn’t catch anything on fire.

Like the corridor.

To be fair, it wasn’t his fault completely. There had been nothing except for Jack to set aflame, until she had exposed wiring in the ceiling from a blast. The corridor was filled with flames, smoke, and foam from the extinguishers. That was all well and good, but they did nothing if the fucking fire was right above the nozzles.

“Look, I just want to help you!” Anders yelled. His eyes darted around, searching for any sign of her. It was getting hard to see, and Anders throat was closing up, his lungs burning. “I get it… You’re a bad ass bitch. Now why don’t we stop this, and agree that Cerberus needs to die, and stop trying to kill each other?”

“Fuck off!” Jack emerged from the thick cloud of smoke, her hands clenched into fists and her biotics blazing. “You think I’m going to buy your little act.”

“It’s not an act,” Anders yelled. “Those bastards stole everything from me. I just get off on telling some of their secrets. You want to know where the base is? I’ll fucking take you there myself. We can blow it up sky high like I did with the last Cerberus base I was at.”

Jack paused in mid-step. “You blew up a Cerberus base?”

Anders shook his hands, and extinguished the flames. “I destroyed it and took out everyone in it.” He gritted his teeth to stop the pang of guilt that threated to erupt. Jack hated Cerberus more than even Anders did. She didn’t need to know the details. “Ask Shepard. Lawson wasn’t too happy to see me when he found me.”

The woman actually smiled at that. “I don’t think anything makes that bitch happy. I bet she scowls even we she gets a good drilling.”

Anders shuddered. “Please, don’t mention Miranda and sex in the same sentence.”

As the power in her fists winked out, Jack laughed. “Yeah… That is pretty fucking disturbing.”

There was a ping, and the elevator doors opened. The smoke was sucked into the vacuum it created, and partially cleared out the hall. Shepard came stumbling out, coughing into his fist. He stared at Jack and Anders. “What the fuck happened here? Are you trying to destroy my ship?”

Walking down the corridor, Shepard pounded his fist on a door at one end. “And why the fuck didn’t Zaeed come out and stop you?” he yelled.

The door hissed and opened. Anders hadn’t met Zaeed yet, the man preferred to keep to himself. He stopped the wince of sympathy when he saw the right side of his face. A massive scar twisted along his cheek, marring his skin. His eyes, one milky and more than likely not real, flicked over Jack and Anders. “Not my ship. Not my crew. Not my business. If it looked like the ship was going to come down around me, then I would have made it my business. As it is, you seem to have shit in order.” The door slid shut in Shepard’s face.

John pounded on the door. “We’re going to have words about this later, Massani!” He kicked at the metal door. “Fuck.”

Anders considered using the distraction to slip into the elevator, when Shepard turned on him and Jack. “What the hell? This is my ship. I don’t care if the two of you want to tear each other apart. We have a mission, and that takes precedence over any grievances. If we don’t work together, we’re not going to stand a chance going through the relay.”

“Shit, Shepard.” Jack flashed John a smile. “Anders and I were just saying hello. No need to get your panties in a bunch over it.”

Shepard crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. “Uh huh… You greet everyone like that, Jack?”

“Only the ones that are going to help me blow up Cerberus bases.”


	4. Chapter 4

Anders sank back into the padded jump seat of the shuttle. Cerberus had gone all out, hadn’t they? You would have thought that they were coming from a luxury cruise liner, rather than the military grade Normandy. Not that Anders was complaining, mind you. He got a special thrill every single time he used the state of the art toilet in his room. Cerberus liked nothing better than to piss their money away on things like the comfort of one of their most expensive projects. Anders was sure Shepard wouldn’t have given a damn one way or another. The man was Alliance military through and through, no matter whose colors adorned his ship. So Anders gave a mental salute to the Illusive Man when the shuttle hit the atmosphere of Pragia, and he felt only the slightest hiccup.

Once he had told Shepard and Jack exactly where the facility she was looking for was, the commander had set a course right for it without hesitation.

And since Anders had once been in communication with Pragia, he had been dragged along. Not that he minded. Jack wanted to blow the damned place sky high, and Anders was more than willing to help her.

The shuttle was largely silent as they descended towards the facility. The closer they got, the twitchier Jack had become. She had begun to tap her foot on the floor, until her heavy boot were pounding on the metal.

Anders and John exchanged a look before Shepard turned to Jack. “I haven’t had a chance to ask you this before, but you wouldn’t happen to know someone that goes by the name Fenris, would you?”

The foot stopped, and Jack turned a suspicious glare on Shepard. “Shit… Why are you asking me about Fen? Yeah, I know him. I haven’t seen him in a while now.”

“I’m supposed to find him and recruit him to the team,” Shepard explained. “According to his dossier, you might know his whereabouts. “

“Yeah? Well, that dossier is shit. Fen and I parted ways a long time ago. I used to run into him from time to time, but I haven’t seen that crazy fucker in a year. You think I’m a bitch, you haven’t met Fen yet.” Jack laughed. “Shit, we use to get into all kinds of trouble. The two of us busted out of the Pragia facility together. He might hate Cerberus more than I do—and that’s saying a lot.” She turned her eyes on Anders. “Fen wouldn’t give one flying fuck if you were ex-Cerberus or not. He’d kill you just the same for even having been a part of those bastards. And honestly, the way Fenris kills even makes me squeamish.”

“Lovely,” Anders murmured.

“How does he kill?” Shepard asked. Anders cursed the man silently. He was willing to bet that they wouldn’t like the answer.

“He rips out hearts with his bare hands. Sometimes it’s so quick, it’s still beating for a moment when he does it.”

Yep… Anders didn’t like that one at all.

**

To say that the Pragia facility was a creepy, broken down, shit hole, was putting it mildly. Anders didn’t like to think he was one that could be spooked easily, but… here he was, a little spooked.

He also felt sick to his stomach. Every time they found an old vid journal chronicling what had gone on in the facility, every time they stopped so Jack could share her delightful memories of being tortured and forced to fight other children, Anders’ stomach got worse—so did the guilt.

Anders had been young when he had worked with Pragia, but that couldn’t excuse his culpability. He should have listened to his gut when it had told him something was wrong, that the data he was receiving was too quick and too detailed to not have been done on humans. He should have leaked the information to the Aliiance, to the Council, to anyone that would have been able to stop it. But he hadn’t… No, Anders had closed his eyes to what Cerberus had been doing, and just taken the astounding information he had been given.

It was beginning to eat at him. What would have happened if he had done it? Would Cerberus have been forced to stop their experiments on the Collector and Reaper artifacts? Would Anders have been able to stop what had happened, and what he’d been forced to do?

A sharp pain stabbed at Anders’ temples and he paused in mid-stride. Shepard and Jack were moving away from the rain drenched courtyard and back into the building. Jack had explained that the jungle planet was filled with plants that would consume and cover anything. Cerberus had been forced to do daily, controlled burns in order to fight the vegetation back from the base. Several fast growing trees had broken through the floor and walls of the courtyard, their roots tearing up the concrete. Throughout the facility, there was water damage from the almost ceaseless rain, and pools of water had gathered on the floor, the rain falling through roofs that had been torn apart by tree branches and Jack.

If Jack had never come, the jungle would have destroyed the Pragia facility without her help.

It wasn’t enough for Jack to see how dilapidated the place was. She needed to see it burn. Anders understood the sentiment. He’d had the same feeling once. It had been freeing, even as it had been terrifying. Anders sometimes wondered if his need to destroy Calenhad had been a symptom of some sort of imbalance in him.

He took two more steps towards the door Jack and Shepard had walked through, when the sharp stabbing in his temples almost sent him to his knees this time. He gasped and clutched at his head. She was searching for him, Anders knew it. He wasn’t going to give up control like he had before. He couldn’t, not after he’d had his freedom for so long.

He gritted his teeth as he fought back, and the pain eventually eased. Good, she had backed off for now, but Anders knew she would return.

**

“Both of you are lying liars!” Anders called. He straightened up from the cement block he had been crouched behind, and flung a fireball at the advancing krogan. The krogan screamed and flailed in a futile attempted to beat at the rapidly encroaching flames that licked up his armor. Anders threw another one at him for good measure as the krogan fell dead to the ground.

“We didn’t lie about shit, Anders.” Jack said. She stood from her spot next to him, a wicked gleam in her eyes and a smirk on her face as she shot a vorcha, point blank with her shotgun, blowing half his face off. She immediately sank back down next to him as bullets whizzed over them where her head had once been, and ejected the shotgun’s heat sink, before popping in a new one. It landed on the ground and sizzled before burning away into ash.

“This place was supposed to have been empty, damn it!” Anders shook his hands and the fire went out, only to be replaced by ice. He climbed once more to his feet, and a blast of ice swept from his fingers, carried by a small mass effect field. It encased a krogan and two vorcha in ice, halting them in their tracks. They exploded in a shower of frozen body parts as Shepard took precise aim with his sniper rifle, and fired.

“They’re Blood Pack you fucking idiot.” Jack popped out of their cover, her biotics charged and flaring bright on her fists. She made a motion that looked like she was tossing a ball, and biotic energy was flung from her hands, rolling in a shockwave along the floor, and toppling any of the Blood Pack in its path. “You were on Omega, you should know what the fucking Blood Pack looks like.”

Shit, they just kept coming, pouring out of the room in front of them, like some sort of homicidal tidal wave. Anders’ lips twitched into a smile at the thought, and he was sure he must look as insane as Jack did.

“Are you incapable of saying one sentence without cursing?” Anders asked her. He fell into a rhythm with Jack and Shepard. Jack would knock them down, and Anders would freeze them, while Shepard put a bullet into them, shattering their frozen bodies. It seemed to go on forever, and Anders was beginning to flag. There was the niggling fear in the back of his mind, that he was pushing his biotics too far, and he needed to stop.

But the Blood Pack stopped first.

They weren’t gone though, far from it. Anders, Jack and Shepard exchanged a startled look when they heard screams coming from the room the Blood Pack had been emerging from. Anders clapped his hands together to get rid of the ice on his hands, and reached for his pistol. Shepard placed his rifle on his back, and pulled his SMG free. He pulled out the heat sink magazine, and checked it once before snapping it back in place. He had done it with such precision and speed, that Anders thought that John wasn’t even aware he’d done it.

“Come on.” Shepard didn’t wait for then to reply before trotting off towards the sounds of the screams.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Jack saluted Shepard’s back and snapped to attention. “Fuck, I hate soldiers.”

“Is there anything you do like?” Anders asked as they started off after the commander.

“Red sand? No… That’s only good sometimes.” Jack screwed her face up as if she was giving the question serious thought. “Big cock? No, it’s usually attached to an asshole who thinks just because his junk is huge, that he owns the world.” She blinked. “Well, shit. I guess I would have to say that I like it when ex-Cerberus scientists don’t ask me dumb questions.”

“Oh, ha ha,” Anders said dryly. “You are so witty, Jack.”

“Thanks,” she replied in all seriousness. “When guys bang me it’s usually because of my brains.”

Anders opened his mouth to reply, but snapped it shut when he realized something. “The screaming… it stopped.” He picked up his pace, and Jack did the same.

He opened the door that Shepard had disappeared through, and Anders sucked in a breath through his teeth. There was a pile of dead Blood Pack on the floor, and blood was splattered everywhere. But the grisly sight wasn’t what had Anders draw his pistol up.

No, it was seeing Shepard with his SMG on the floor at his feet, and his hands in the air. It was also seeing the man in front of Shepard, and the way his arms were soaked up to his elbows in blood and gore.

Oh, and did Anders mention he was glowing?

“I’m not here to hurt you,” Shepard said carefully. “I’ve put my weapon down, so why don’t you turn off your biotics?”

The man was covered in black leather. Some of it had been molded in spikes that flared up from his shoulders. His knee high boots made him appear slightly taller, but he was short and slight, and Anders could see the lean muscles just under the tight leather. He had a hood covering his head, and Anders could make out none of his features.

There was a blue iridescent light coming from him, that Anders normally would have associated with a biotic field. But his was different, and it seemed to come from all over him, seeping from silvery white lines on his throat that Anders could barely discern.

Anders didn’t know what the fuck he was. He’d never seen anything like it before. And Anders liked to think he’d seen it all.

“Do you think that I would believe a man who came here on a Cerberus shuttle?” the man asked, and his hands that had been clenched into fists, flexed open.

Ah, fuck… He had gauntlets on that formed clawed fingertips, and blood dripped down from them onto the floor. Anders flicked his eyes to a dead krogan on the floor next to him. There was a massive hole in his chest. He could see where the krogan’s ribcage gleamed wetly with rapidly congealing blood. They had been broken from the inside out, and where his heart should be, there was nothing…

Just as Anders was beginning to realize that maybe Jack wasn’t the only one that had wanted to come back to Pragia for closure, she pushed passed him. “Fen? Fen, what the hell are you doing here? I know it’s you, fucker. If the Blood Pack’s missing hearts didn’t give it away, then that fucking smooth voice of yours would have. No one else sounds like you do, and kills the way you do.”

The man raised his bloodied hands to the hood and drew it back.

Anders felt like he’d been punched in the gut. Beautiful… That was the first thing that popped into his mind, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from blurting it out. Anders had never seen an elf before. They were so rare, and never left batarian space. Anders had seen pictures, but never up close and personal. The elf had smooth olive skin, and the tattoo on his neck traveled up to just over his chin. While his eyebrows were dark slashes, his hair was pure white, and fell to shaggy lengths around his face and neck. His ears, one of the defining traits of the elves, were long and pointed at the tips. His bangs almost covered his deep green eyes that stared at Jack in bewilderment.

“Jack? I don’t…” He narrowed his eyes. “They took you, didn’t they?”

Jack was right, that voice was unique. It rolled over Anders, and seemed to seep right into his skin. It brought to mind refined, but dangerous things. Anders gave himself a mental shake, snapping him out of his fanciful thoughts.

Now wasn’t the time.

All Anders needed to do was look at the elf’s arms to see that he was a vicious killer.

“Fuck no,” Jack laughed. “You’re still an asshole, Fen.”

“And you’re still insisting on calling me that insipid nickname. You know I hate it. Now tell me why you came here on a Cerberus shuttle. Did you steal it?” Although Fenris’ strange power still radiated around him, it had dimmed as he and Jack spoke.

“Ha!” Jack elbowed Shepard who had lowered his arms and retrieved his weapon. “Hear that, Shepard? Told you I could steal your ship.”

She gave Fenris a wide grin. “Naw, I didn’t do that. You’ve gotta hear Shepard out. You know how I’ve always told you that you were the craziest fucker I knew? Well, Shepard here might just be crazier.”

**

When the last bit of his armor hit the floor, Anders flopped face first onto his bed in relief. Shepard was good, really good. After several suspicious questions, Fenris had agreed to join them on their mission. Anders was convinced there had to be a catch. It had been too easy, especially after how Jack had told them that Fenris hated everything Cerberus. But Shepard could be very persuasive when he wanted to be, and he had bluntly told Fenris exactly what they were doing, and who was funding them.

So now Fenris was ensconced on the Normandy, God knows where. He had sat next to Anders on the shuttle back to the ship, his avid eyes glued to the window, and the sight of the Pragia facility going up in flames.

There was something about Fenris that tickled the back of Ander’ mind, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it. Anders had mostly dealt with biotic amps when he had worked with Pragia, but when he’d glanced over at Fenris to see any signs of the surgeries that Jack had had, there was nothing to be seen except for tattoos. It was strange, he was older than Jack, and they acted as if they had both been on Pragia together. Something had been done to him—that was a given. He hated Cerberus too much for that to not be true.

Anders squeezed his eyes shut. What he’d done to Aresh, the poor bastard that had come back to Pragia to start up the biotic program there, had been… Anders till couldn’t get the sound of his screams out of his head. Jack had hauled Anders and Shepard from the room, telling them they really didn’t want to see what Fenris was going to do.

Anders hadn’t gone back into the room that had once been Jack’s cell, and where they’d found Aresh, but Shepard had. He had returned to the hall with his face bleached of color, and his teeth gritted. He had been able to talk Jack out of killing the man, but not Fenris. The elf had walked out with his face and hair splattered in blood, and his lips pressed in a grim line.

Fuck… There was something there. What was it? It wasn’t like him to forget any of the Cerberus research he’d been a part of, so he didn’t think it was that. Had there been a note about elves once, one that he might have read and then dismissed?

His stomach growled, and Anders sat up. He needed to eat and take a shower. He still had blood and grime on him, and wanted to get the crawling feeling from going to Pragia off his skin. His bathroom didn’t have a shower in it, so he had to use the communal one near the mess.

Decision made, he got up.

**

“Tell me truthfully, Jack,” Fenris said as he leaned against a table in the space Jack had commandeered for herself. It was dim in the bowels of the ship, and Jack had only a single cot to call her own. Fenris didn’t like that the only light barely illuminated anything, and what it did shine on, it bathed a deep red. He could see how Jack would have been drawn more to the position on the ship, rather than what it looked like. “Are you just trying to gain their trust so you can steal the ship and airlock everyone inside?”

“You wish.” Jack sat crossed legged on her cot. “Shepard promised to help me blow Pragia to shit. He’s also the man in charge, not Cerberus. Yeah, there are some Cerberus people here, but they have to listen to him just like everyone else. He’s good people, even if he does talk like a fucking pussy.”

Fenris arched an eyebrow at her. “So you actually believe his story? That we’re going to go through the Omega Four Relay?”

“And you don’t?” Jack braced her hands behind her and leaned back. “Then why the fuck did you agree to come? Not like you, Fen.”

Fenris looked away. Why had he agreed? He had come to Pragia for the same reason that Jack had—to find some sort of closure and destroy the place. Seeing that place go up in a ball of flame… that alone had been worth joining Shepard. But it had been more than that. He was still being hunted, and had decided he was sick of it. Ever since he’d escaped with Jack from Pragia, it had been the same thing over and over. One day he would invariably be found, and then he would have to run again. He couldn’t continue doing this for the rest of his life, and had thought that going back to Pragia, to where it had all started would give him some answers.

Instead he had found Shepard.

If Shepard had been willing to help Jack, maybe he would be willing to help Fenris. He could use Cerberus’ own resources against them, and find out where the bastard that had made him was, finally flushing him out and ending it for good.

“I need help finding someone,” he finally said.

“Who…” Jack sat forward. “Aw, fuck… You’ve finally decided to go looking for the sick bastard, huh? Shepard will help you find him once he knows why, Fen. He’s all white knight like that.”

He met her eyes, and his hands clenched into fists. “I hope you’re faith in him isn’t misplaced. I need to find Danarius, and make him suffer for what was done to me.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Shit…” Anders pounded on the door to the men’s bathroom on the crew deck. The damned thing was locked.  “Hey! There are other people that need to use the showers, asshole.” He smacked his fist against it again for good measure, and the impact reverberated along the metal door. “Hey! Open the damned door!”

 

He glared at the red holo-lock as if it offended him. And frankly, it really did. His bundle of clean clothes, soap, and towel were dropped on the floor, forgotten as he opened up his omni-tool. His fingers tapped a few buttons, and he synced it to the lock. “Let’s see how you like this. I bet there’s people fucking in there. People who aren’t me.”

“I would advise against that, Anders.” EDI’s voice came over the intercom above his head.

“Yeah? Why’s that?” Fuck! He just wanted to get clean, and into some fresh clothes so he could eat. Was that too much to ask? Apparently so, if the ass on the other side of the door had anything to say about it.

“To open any lock on this ship would require skills that you do not possess. Especially since I was asked specifically, to make sure that no one could get inside for a set amount of time, which will expire in less than thirty seconds.”

Anders lowered his arm, and his omni-tool winked out. “Asked? By who?”

“By Commander Shepard,” EDI said in her no nonsense voice.

“But Shepard has his own damned shower. Why would he—“ Anders was cut off as the holo-lock flashed green, and the door slid open with a hiss.  A pair of hard green eyes glared up at him. Fenris’ hair was still damp, and it clung wetly to his forehead and neck. He clutched a bundle consisting of his armor, and a damp towel. Without the leather, and only wearing a black shirt and equally black pants, Anders could see just how far his tattoos went on his hands and arms. They followed the lines of the backs of his fingers, and ran down to trace over the metacarpal bones. When they hit his wrists, the silvery lines broke apart, and became a swirling design that wrapped around, and traveled up his arms to disappear into the sleeves of his shirt.

He was also barefoot, and Anders couldn’t help but notice how long his feet were, and if that meant he was long all ov—

Fenris cleared his throat, and Anders realized he’d been staring. His eyes shot back up to Fenris’ face, and the elf curled his lip at Anders in disgust. “Have you looked your fill? I heard your incessant pounding at the door. Did you stop and think that I don’t like to be gawked at, and wanted some privacy? Or do your needs supersede everyone else’s on the ship?”

“I uh…” Anders was perfectly aware that his mouth was opening and closing like some sort of landed fish. But he’d be damned if he could stop himself from doing it.

Fenris’ voice dropped into a deadly whisper. “Jack told me who you are. You claim that you are a scientist, and left Cerberus.  I don’t care. You were Cerberus once, and you will always be Cerberus. You’ll taint everything you touch. Your kind can’t help themselves.”

That was going too far. “You…” Anders towered over the shorter elf. “Look, you don’t know me.  So you can take your little ball of bitterness, and cuddle it to your chest somewhere else. I don’t want it. You’re not the only person Cerberus has ever screwed over, you know. Or do you think you’re a special snowflake, and no one has ever known the horrible pain you have gone through?”

Fenris’ lips peeled back from his teeth, and he snarled at Anders. “No, no one has.” His bundle dropped to the floor, and landed on top of Anders’ forgotten clothes. He grabbed Anders by the shirt and pushed him back with surprising strength. Anders was so caught off guard, that Fenris had his back slammed against the door to life support behind him, before he even knew what was happening.

The breath rushed out of Anders, and he had an insane moment to think about how if every new crew member was going to do this to him, he needed to learn to keep to the labs and his quarters. Fenris yanked Anders down so their eyes could meet. His shirt made a popping sound, as the stitches on the neckline snapped and the material stretched, abrading the back of his neck.

Seriously… He wasn’t even  _wearing_  a Cerberus uniform, and he told Fenris as much. “I’m not even wearing their crime-against-fashion uniform. Why don’t you go and take out all your angst on Miranda. I’m sure the two of you would get along well together. Or why not go down into the deep pit that Jack calls a room, and the two of you can catch up on old times. Maybe have your own little ‘I hate Cerberus’ club. I bet Shepard will even let you make a fort down there and—“ The rest of his sentence was cut off as Fenris grabbed him by the throat and squeezed.

“Be silent. Do you always babble nonsense?” Fenris tilted his head to the side, and Anders didn’t like the considering look he was giving him.

“It’s one of my finer points,” Anders gasped. He clawed at Fenris’ hands in an effort to loosen his grip. “Let me go, asshole.”

“Do you want to know what Cerberus did to me?” Fenris growled. “Do you want to hear about how I was taken as a child, sold away from my family by the batarians? Do you want to know what they made me into?”

Spots danced before Anders’ eyes. “No… No, I really…  _really_ … don’t.” Fuck, why wasn’t anyone coming to help him? He couldn’t risk using his biotics to get the elf off of him. Engineering had been bad enough, but there were crew quarters only a few doors down from them. Anders couldn’t risk hurting someone inadvertently.

The skin around the bridge of Fenris’ nose, wrinkled in his anger. “That’s really too bad, isn’t it?” That strange blue glow that had emanated from Fenris on Pragia, filled Anders’ field of vision. “Unlike Jack, my markings aren’t for decoration, or for the fuck of it. I don’t remember anything before I got them. What little I do know was ripped from a Cerberus scientist—one just like you—before I killed him.”

Anders was horrified. “What…” He gagged when Fenris squeezed tighter. “What did… they do?”  _What might I have contributed to?_

“You are a scientist. You should know how Element Zero works. It does something to those it touches, mutating them, allowing them to become natural biotics who don’t need amps. If it doesn’t kill you…” Fenris drew Anders closer, until his lips brushed his ear. At any other time, Anders would have had no objection to the feeling of warm breath ghosting over his skin, and the way it rustled Anders’ hair that had fallen lose from his ponytail. It had been so long since he had been with anyone… But this was no game, and Anders was acutely aware of how much danger he was actually in.

“My first memory,” Fenris whispered in a seductive parody of a lover, “was of receiving these markings. They laid Element Zero into my skin, and I cannot be rid of it. It’s become a part of me now. I awoke to unrelenting pain, and I screamed for days while my body tried to reject it. That’s what Cerberus scientists do. That’s what men like  _you_  do.”

There it was…

It all happened in a heartbeat, but Anders was flung back into memory. A footnote, the musings of a scientist on Pragia. Anders had come across it, and dismissed it immediately as madness. He had thought that the scientist couldn’t have possibly been serious. It had been so far down in the daily research he was sent, that it had been almost buried. Anders had only remembered those brief questions, because it had just been so outlandish.

_Small contact with Element Zero shown to sometimes create natural biotics. What would constant contact do? Would it have to be laid into the skin?_

Oh, fuck… They had done it. What was the name of the scientist? What the hell had been his name?

“Not me…” Anders said, and his voice was a rough whisper. “Never me… I—“

“Am I interrupting something?” Garrus’ voice was so welcomed, that Anders felt dizzy with relief. Or maybe that was the lack of blood to his brain. He was just going to go with Garrus. He was abruptly let go and he fell to his knees, clutching his throat.

“I was just introducing myself to Anders,” Fenris said above him.

“Huh… Well since Jack introduced herself in the same way, I’m going to have to assume it’s a human custom? Never heard of that one before.”  Garrus paused. “But you’re not human, so there goes that theory.”

Anders couldn’t tell if Garrus was serious or not. He hadn’t spent much time around turians. If Anders had ever had an urge to stay on his knees, and show a turian just how wonderful he thought they were, it would have been with Garrus.

“See, we kind of like Anders,” Garrus continued on. “And we like him whole and alive.”

“Like an amusing pet,” Anders choked out.

“Exactly,” Garrus agreed. “I’m a pretty funny guy, and Anders is almost as funny as I am—almost. I think if he stuck around for a while, he could learn a thing or two from me. I’m nice like that.” Garrus’ voice dropped its jovial tone. “Hurt Anders again, and not only will you have to deal with Shepard and I, but Mordin might have something to say about it too. Have you met Mordin? You really don’t want to piss  _him_  off. He had all of Omega running scared. That’s not someone you want to make unhappy by hurting his friends.”

Anders’ head shot up, and he looked at Garrus in astonishment. He had never had anyone stick up like that for him before—ever. His whole life he’d never understood what it was like to make a true friend. Either because the other children in the orphanage he’d grown up in thought he was weird, or because when he’d entered college, he had been too absorbed in his studies. People had liked him he was a fun guy to be around, but never anyone that he could truly count on. It did something strange to him, what Garrus had said.

Fenris and Garrus stared at each other, and Fenris was the first one to look away. He bent down and gathered his belongings. “Then tell your Cerberus pet to stay out of my way. Keep him leashed, and I won’t touch him again.”  With that pronouncement, he brushed by Garrus and disappeared around the corner towards the elevator.

Anders dropped his head back against the door to life support, and brushed his bangs out of his face. He scowled and ripped his hair tie free, the mass falling around his shoulders. “Have I ever told you that I adore you, Garrus?”

Garrus chuckled. “No, but you don’t need to, everyone adores me. It just goes without saying.”

Turning his head to face the turian, Anders gave him a wide smile. “Seriously. You need a blow job, I’m here for you, buddy.”

“No… No need.” Garrus held out his hands and spread all two fingers and thumb. “I’ve told you before that you wouldn’t be able to handle it. Let’s just be friends and call it a day, all right?”

“Yeah…” Anders staggered to his feet.  “I need to have Shepard tell the new people that they aren’t allowed to touch Anders, when he gives them the orientation speech in the comm room.”

“Orientation speech?” Garrus walked over to Anders, and placed a hand under his arm to help steady him.

“You know, the thing he does when you come on board, and you get to talk to Miranda and Jacob before EDI finds you a room. Speaking of, was Jacob a dick to you when you came on board. Because he was to me. Asking me if the ship was going to be safe, if I was going to lose it and destroy them all.” Anders snorted. “As if I would blow up a ship I’m currently a passenger of. He really must think I’m stupid.”

This was perfect. Bantering with Garrus, about everything except the glaring fact that Anders had just almost had the life choked out of him, was helping to get his mental equilibrium back. He’d completely meant it when he’d told Garrus he’d go down on him. Kind of… Sort of… Not really.

But of course, Garrus had to bring him back around as to why he was carefully hauling Anders to the med bay. “Want to tell me what happened? Or am I just going to have to report it to Shepard, and he can ask you?”

“As if EDI hasn’t already informed him. If I was a paranoid man—which I am—I would be worried at how much she sees on the ship, and who actually owns it.”

“True, but you still haven’t answered my question,” Garrus pointed out gently.

“Ah, fuck…” Anders groaned. “Just leave me in med bay and go get Shepard. That way I can save myself the trouble, and not have to tell it twice.”

**

Shepard crossed his arms. “I want to trust you, Fenris. I really do. But I can’t have you attacking my crewmembers like that.”

Fenris hated confined spaces, it reminded him too much of being locke din his cell on Pragia, unable to see the outside world. EDI had shown him to the observation room, and he had immediantly opened the shutters when he’d entered the room. The large window that spanned a single wall, made one feel like they were flying through the stars when they looked at it. It was beautiful, to see all the planets and stars moving past at a rapid rate, creating lines of brilliant color. The room was spacious, and far too large for what little belongings he had, but he appreciated the enormous space, and could even lock the door to keep others out when he needed.

When he had left the crew deck after his encounter in front of the bathroom, Fenris hadn’t wanted to turn and walk right into his own room. He had needed to get as far away from Anders and Garrus as possible. Instead, he had stomped down to Jack, where she had gotten an earful about nosey turians, and lying scientists.

She had laughed at him, and told him to pull his panties out of his ass, find his balls, and man up if he wanted Shepard to help him with Danarius. She’s reminded him none to gently, that Shepard was the best chance he was going to get if he wanted to see Danarius’ heart in his hands.

God, Jack was a bitch.

That she’d been right hadn’t helped his mood. Neither had finding Shepard waiting for him in front of his door.

“You shouldn’t trust me.” Fenris said. He mimicked Shepard’s stance, and crossed his arms over his chest as he stood in front of the large observation window. “If you don’t know by now that trust only leads to death, then I’m surprised you’ve survived this long.”

“And I’m surprised you’ve lived this long by not trusting. Same thing with Jack.” Shepard raised an eyebrow at him. “You do trust Jack, though.”

“I trust Jack because she doesn’t expect much from me. The same way I don’t expect much from her. We meet, part, and meet again. That’s how we work. Neither of us wants an attachment that could be used against the other.”

“Uh huh… You two keep telling yourselves that.” Shepard sighed and ran his palm over his scalp. “Look, I’m not happy either to be on a Cerberus ship. But it’s not about us, is it? It’s about using what we can get to stop the Collectors, and the Reapers. Anders knows his stuff, and he is more than willing to put his life on the line to help a cause that his greater than his own prejudices. Can you say the same? If not, then what the fuck are you doing on my ship?”

That took Fenris aback, and he looked away. “I… I came because I need your help. If you can do what I need, then I will follow you gladly through the Omega Four Relay. I don’t have the resources that you do, and I haven’t been able to get close enough to…” He stopped and drew in a breath. It wasn’t easy for him to open himself up to anyone, but he knew it had to be done in order to get what he needed.

“There was a scientist on Pragia, Danarius was his name. I don’t know anything else other than that. His was the first face I remember seeing, grinning down at me in triumph.” He held up his arms. “Pure Element Zero. He laid it into my skin. He once told me that I was his greatest achievement. So many others had died during the process. It allows me to… do things that other biotics cannot. I want his location. I want to look him in the eyes, and see his horror and fear that the monster he created is going to be the one that killed him.

Shepard reached out as if to touch Fenris’ arm, but stopped inches away. “How did you survive? Element Zero can cause tumors, and—“

“I don’t know. He always told me I was lucky.” Fenris’ lip curled in derision. “ _Lucky_. As if I should think myself thankful, as if I should have thanked  _him_.”

“Sounds like a real bastard. You’re sure he was Cerberus?” Shepard’s jaw had set in hard, angry lines.

“Completely. I will never forget his lab uniform, for as long as I live.” Fenris had nightmares about that uniform, and the many buttons that had ran up the side to close it. Danarius use to get enjoyment making him use his teeth to open them, one by one. Twelve… Twelve buttons until the humiliation would start, twelve until Fenris’ cries for mercy were ignored. Twelve fucking white buttons with orange thread until the pain would start, and Fenris just wanted it to be over, over, over.

Fenris blinked and turned his back to Shepard, staring out at the stars.  He was stronger now, and no longer a victim.

“EDI,” Shepard said, and Fenris felt the tension in his shoulders relax in relief. “Find what you can on a Cerberus scientist that worked on Pragia. His name was Danarius. We don’t know if it was his first or last. Have it sent to my private terminal.”

“Understood, Shepard. Logging you out.”


	6. Chapter 6

Anders watched Jack warily as she strolled around his sparse room. She touched the holo-lock and the bathroom door whooshed open. She popped her head inside and laughed. “Not bad, Anders. Could use a shower though.”

“I know, right?” Anders sat on the edge of his bed and he leaned back so he could glance out the window above the headboard. “I’m right next to the labs, and I have my own bathroom. Now if Mordin would stop singing to himself at all hours of the night, it would be perfect.”

 

“I bet you get less traffic than I do.” The bathroom door shut behind her and Jack leaned against it. “Since you have to go through the labs and the doc to get here. Nice fucking guard dog you got there. Bit my damn head off when I came in.”

Anders scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “Sorry about that. Mordin’s a little jumpy since he heard what your friend Fenris did to me a few days ago.”

Jack held up her hands. “That shit is none of my concern. You and Fen can either fuck or fight it out. Just tell the doc to get off my ass.”

“Fuck? Uh huh… If he touches my ass at all, it would be because he’s ripping my testicles out through my anus.”

Jack cackled. “That does sound like Fen. God, he scares the piss out of even me sometimes. Gotta love him for it.”

“Love him for it, hide, same difference.” But what Anders was doing was more than hiding. He felt like a coward, and he hated it. Mordin and Garrus had encircled Anders, and few got through, especially not Fenris. Anders always knew when Fenris was in the CIC, because Garrus would come waltzing into the lab and make small talk, his eyes constantly darting to the doors as if he was expecting someone. It drove Anders crazy, but he let them do it, didn’t he?

If there was one thing that Anders hated, it was to be trapped—especially in a lab. He’d spent almost all of his adult life like that, and didn’t relish the return of it.

“Well, Fen should be here any second, so you better tell the doc to lay off.” Jack flashed a grin at Anders.

Anders shot up from his bed. “What! Did you not hear what I said? Why is he coming here?”

He strode over to his door, and before he could open it, Jack called out from behind him.  “I don’t like doctors, all right. I want you to take a look at my amp like I said, but I want him here when you do it. Nothing personal, don’t make a fucking big deal out of it.”

Anders paused with his fingers hovering over the holo-lock. Shit… He could understand that, and he wasn’t a monster to tell her no either. He and Jack had struck up a strange sort of friendship since Pragia. They trusted each other, in so far as much as Jack could trust anyone. When she had heard that Anders had been using his time in the labs to go over the crew’s medical files, and fine tune their amps, she had sent him a message saying that she was interested. And if he made any funny comments, that she would kick his fucking ass.

In Jack speak, it meant that she trusted him in a way, and Anders was fully aware of that. If she needed Fenris with her as well…

“Fine, but if he tries to pull anything out of me that is supposed to stay on the inside, then I’m going to be super pissed at you.” Anders touched the lock and the door slid open.

“Yeah, we won’t want to mess up that pretty face of yours,” Jack said as she followed him into the lab. “Because it gets you laid _so_  often.”

“Well it used to,” Anders said as he pulled a chair and placed it near a small workstation. “But that was before I got on this blasted ship.” He gestured for Jack to sit. If he was lucky, maybe he could get this done before Jack knew it, and Fenris showed up.

_Coward…_

Yeah, like he was going to listen to his inner voice, because it had given him  _such_  good advice in the past.

When the door to the lab opened, Anders knew that he had run out of time. Fenris strode in, with Garrus right on his heels. Garrus walked immediately over to Anders and inserted himself between the scientist and the elf.

 _Nice…_  Anders thought.  _Now I am officially a coward, and unable to protect myself in their eyes. Lovely._  Was this why Shepard had decided to take Miranda and Zaeed with him to pick up the Warlord? Because from where Anders was standing, it looked like that Anders couldn’t take care of himself. Damn it. A Cerberus ship was the last place he wanted to appear weak.

“Hey, Garrus,” Anders said to the turian’s back. “As nice as it is to see you, it’s a bit crowded in here right now. Can you come back later?”

Garrus looked over his shoulder with his good eye. “Is it? I was just passing by, but if you feel like you don’t need me…”

Anders didn’t like the sardonic look at Fenris was giving him. “Nope,” he assured Garrus. “I think the Normandy needs you more. Why don’t you go back and calibrate the Javelins, or whatever it is you’re doing for hours on end? I’ll talk to you later.”

Jack cackled in laughter. “It figures that turians would use calibrating guns to mean they’re spanking the monkey.”

“What?” Garrus blinked. “Why would I want to spank a monkey? That doesn’t even make sense.”

Anders cleared his throat. “She means jerking off.”

“Oh!” Garrus grinned at Jack, flashing his pointed teeth. “What can I say—turian’s like their big guns. Do humans equate their…um… parts to animals often?”

“Spanking the monkey, choking the chicken, charming the snake, flogging the dolphin…” Jack slapped her thigh. “Well I’ll be damned. I guess we do.”

“As enlightening as this conversation is, and as much as it’s doing to further turian/human relations, I meant it when I said it was too crowded in here.” His voice dropped, and he stepped closer to Garrus. “I’m fine, Garrus. I’ll see you in the mess later.”

Garrus nodded and left, but not before Anders caught the look he exchanged with Mordin. Yeah… He really needed to have a talk with the both of them. He knew it was his fault for not saying anything sooner, but he couldn’t have anyone on the ship thinking he was easy prey. He couldn’t have  _Cerberus_ thinking it. If— _when_ —they returned from the Omega Four Relay, Anders was going to hightail it off this ship. If Cerberus thought that he was weak in any way, he wouldn’t make it onto the shuttle.

Jack thankfully sat down in the chair without Anders having to ask her. He lightly touched the back her head to tilt it down, exposing the port under the occipital bone. In his periphery, Anders watched Fenris cross his arms, and lean his hip against Mordin’s worktable. His gaze met Fenris’ and Anders jerked his eyes away, studiously examining Jack’s bio-amp.

Anders dropped to his haunches to get a better look. This was… messy. That was the best way he could describe it. There was too much scar tissue around the port. “Jack, how many surgeries did you have on the port? I’m seeing signs that it was done several times. What happened?” Shit… He didn’t want to touch it now. Who knows what was going on in there.

“Cerberus happened,” Jack said. “Don’t know what they did, don’t care. It was agony, and that was enough.”

Anders straightened and snagged a pair of latex gloves from a dispenser on his worktable. He slipped them on with a snap. “I’m betting agony doesn’t begin to cover it. Do you get headaches? Back pain?” Yeah, this was going to take longer than Anders had thought it would. Cerberus really did a number on her. It wasn’t going to be a quick look and some fine tuning like it had been with the other biotics on the ship.

“Hell, Anders, I hurt all over.” Jack shrugged. “Use to it now. As for the headaches… Red sand takes care of that nicely. Don’t feel much of anything then.”

“Uh huh… You do know red sand doesn’t work that way, right? You might be making it worse by snorting eezo. Your brain goes on overdrive, so of course headaches are going to be the least of your worries.” Anders glared at the back of Jack’s head, even though she couldn’t see it.

“Telling me not to do drugs, Anders? Aw, I didn’t know you cared. You should try it sometime.”

“I have,” Anders said softly. The room went silent, and even Mordin had stopped working to stare at him. “What?” he asked when Jack whipped her head around to look at him. “My specialty was biotics and the brain. I wanted to know how red sand felt, so I took some—stayed up for three days. By the last day, I knocked myself out with another drug. I’m never doing that again. I learned a lot about how it affected human biotics, but I felt gross for a week. Take it from me, it’s not worth it. You’re going to end up with worse problems than you already have. “

Jack gave him a crooked grin. “Shit, Anders. You should make some PSAs or something. You getting all boring and straight laced on me?”

Fenris, who had been silent since he had walked in, spoke for the first time. “He’s correct, Jack. We have already talked about this numerous times.”

Rolling her eyes, Jack faced forward again and tilted her head down. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Fuck, now I have two of you harping on me. Wanna get the boss man in on this too?”

Anders laughed and touched the back of her head lightly, to get her use to his touch before he pulled the amp free. “Know the name of the doctor that did this?” He pulled the two clips on the port apart and the amp slid free.

“Dick? Asshole? Bastard? Sloppy cunt? Hell, Anders, it’s not like they introduced themselves, and we had tea before they carved my brain up.”

Anders held the amp up to the light and turned it slowly in his fingers. Engraved on the side were a series of numbers. His brow furrowed as he tried to recall the prototype number. Damn, he was regretting deleting everything on the Pragia project before he left Calenhad.

This was definitely going to take longer.

“I’m going to have to scan this, and look it over before I mess with it,” he told her. “Sorry, I don’t recognize the serial number.”

“Whatever,” Jack said as he turned to the worktable. He back was to the room as he set it down on a clean folded sheet, and began to scan the bio-amp with his omni-tool, so he didn’t see what happened next.

“Oh, shit!” Jack yelled as something crashed behind him.

Anders whirled around to see Fenris’ left arm in Mordin’s hands, and a needle sticking out of his bicep. Glass from a beaker lay in shards at Fenris’ feet.

“Won’t take long,” Mordin said a bit too calmly in the face of Fenris’ obvious rage. “Just something to make you compliant as I take a sample. Anticipating your anger and eventual search for revenge. Wouldn’t recommend it. Also wouldn’t recommend hurting Anders again. Great doctor, need him on the ship, he’ll save lives. Maybe yours one day. Feel it is necessary to tell you that Anders could have burnt you to a crisp. Seen him do it before, not a good way to die, lots of screaming. Also feel it necessary to tell you that although I have ethics, I can be clumsy, maybe accidently release a neurotoxin in observation.”

Fenris gripped the edge of the worktable with his free hand. His eyes blinked shut, and then snapped open. “Will kill you for this.”

“Elf memory bad, needs repetition? No, can’t be it. Drug making him forget what I just told him? No, no, calculated for approximate body weight, actually used less than I should have. Must feel the need to tell me what I already know.”

Mordin smiled to himself as he scooped up an empty syringe, and slid it into one of Fenris’ brands on his arm. “Know that you wouldn’t allow this if I asked, so didn’t. Must know what was done to you, very curious, and cautious. Might be dangerous.”

“I am dangerous, you fucking salarian.” Fenris slurred. “I’ll rip your heart out.”

“Oh? No, no, misunderstand. That much element zero in the open, must make sure it can’t contaminate others, make the ship sick.” He pulled the plunger back and blood began to fill the syringe. “Less sick, more insane. Close quarters…” Mordin clucked his tongue. “Disastrous. Work too important to stop because the crew is dying. Must make sure.”

Jack and Anders had been frozen dumb, and it was Anders who moved first. He snatched the bio-amp from the table, and carefully replaced it back into the port. Jack hissed in a breath as it connected, and he squeezed her shoulder in apology before striding over to Fenris.

He made it just in time. Mordin pulled the syringe free, and let go of the elf. Fenris slumped to the floor, and Anders caught him around the waist without giving it a second thought. Anders’ first thought was that he was heavier than he seemed. He could feel Fenris’ tightly compacted muscles in his lean frame.

“Thank you,” Mordin said as he turned his back to them. “Take him to his room, he must sleep now. Should be fine when he wakes up.”

“Should be?” Anders asked. “What the hell, Mordin? What did you give him?”

“Something of my own making. Saw an opportunity to test it out while getting the sample I needed. Made sense.”

“Oh, well that makes it okay then,” Anders grumbled. Fenris’ eyes rolled in his head as he fought off the urge to sleep. “Can you give me a hand, Jack?”

With the two of them on either side of Fenris, they managed to get him out of the lab, through the CIC and onto the elevator. Anders could feel the elf’s body heat seeping through their clothes and into Anders’ skin.

“’ack…” Fenris slurred. “Dun leave me… Hate this…”

Jack and Anders exchanged a look over Fenris’ head. “The scientists use to drug him a lot. Can’t stand the feeling,” she explained.

Of course… Of fucking course. Damn it, why did Mordin have to be so heavy handed at time? The salarian was a genius, but he was also single minded when it came to something that caught his interest, sometimes to the detriment of others.

“We won’t fucking leave you, Fen,” Jack assured him. “Will we, Anders?”

“Excuse me?” Anders asked as they reached their floor and the doors slid open.

“We don’t know what the fuck the doc gave him. You’re staying right with us.”


	7. Chapter 7

Jack and Anders had a fairly easy time getting Fenris to his room. They had been only stopped once by Garrus as they walked by the mess. The Turian took one look at Fenris, and half stood from his seat. Anders had waved at Garrus with his free hand, and had given Garrus a thumbs up. What the hell the thumbs up was supposed to mean, Anders didn’t know, but Garrus had seemed to buy it and had sat back down.

 

When the door closed behind them, Anders glanced around the lounge. There were couches on both sides of the room, but it was the far left corner that caught his eye. There was a makeshift bed on the floor, made out of several folded blankets. A small chest, with a duffel bag on top, sat next to it. At the end of the bed were empty wine bottles. They were stacked half hazard, and looked as if the whole thing would tip over at any moment.

Anders frowned. “Don’t tell me he’s sleeping on the floor instead of the couches.”

Jack looked to where Anders nodded with his head. “Yeah… See Fen has this thing about comfort. In that he doesn’t really fucking do it.”

“Well too bad.” Anders started for one of the couches, and Jack had no choice but to follow, or else pull Fenris between them. They settled him on the couch, and Jack went to snatch some blankets and a pillow off the makeshift bed. Anders crouched down on the floor, and picked up Fenris’ wrist to check his pulse.

When he was satisfied that it was strong, but slow, Anders turned Fenris’ hand over—he couldn’t help himself. He traced one of the eezo lines that were branded into the back of Fenris’ hand with his forefinger. God, he could feel the mineral just under the skin. The line was raised slightly and had a hardness to it.  He had to be in constant pain each time he moved.

“Who did this?” he asked Jack as she threw a blanket on top of Fenris.

“A man named Danarius,” Jack said as she sank down to the floor, and crossed her legs. She propped her elbows on her knees, and let her hands dangle between her thighs. “Real sick son of a bitch. I didn’t see him much, but Fen did. Danarius was obsessed with him.”

“I’m as much at fault as he is,” Anders whispered. “I should have… I should have done more. I shouldn’t have been a coward, and gone to the Alliance, the Citadel, somewhere. “  He gently laid Fenris’ hand down on his chest and tucked the blanket around him. “I’ll make this up to you—to both of you.”

“Fucking idiot.” Jack smacked Anders on the back of the head, and he let out an undignified yelp. “You can make it up to us by making sure we survive the Omega Four Relay. You do that, and you and I are square. You fucking got that?”

Anders rubbed the back of his head and glared at her. “Yeah, but did you have to hit me? Jesus…”

“Worked didn’t it? You’d be amazed at what a good ass kicking can accomplish. You were starting to get all…” She waved her hands. “What’s the word I’m looking for here?”

“Maudlin?” Anders ventured.

“Nah… I was thinking more of pussy. But the slitting the wrists and sitting in the dark kind.”

“Then… Thank you?”

How the hell did Fenris survive what Danarius had done to him? How had he not gone insane from the pain? His eyes flickered over to the empty wine bottles. He drank… That’s how.

“I call it as I see it,” Jack grinned. “Hell, Anders. You’re not that bad of a guy. You just need to put your big girl panties on and deal. So you fucked up. If I sat around feeling sorry for myself whenever I screwed up, I wouldn’t be able to move. I learn instead.”

Anders refrained from pointing out that Jack had her own share of regrets. But the heart of what she was saying was still true. Anders could either spend his time on the Normandy hiding in the lab, or he could actually do something. Next time Shepard went to a colony that had just suffered a Collector attack, Anders was going to request to go with him. Until then, he was going to make sure that Jack’s amp didn’t kill her, and find a way to keep Fenris pain free without the copious use of alcohol.

“Fenris drink a lot?” he suddenly asked.

Jack laughed. “The words ‘fuck yeah’, don’t even come close. He can do his job, don’t worry about that. And if you’re thinking of going and crying to Shepard about it, don’t. Fen needs to be here. Shepard is going to help him with something. Besides, he’s got a reason, don’t he?”

“There’s having a reason to drink, and then there is doing it to dull physical pain,” Anders pointed out gently.

Jack whistled low. “Figured out he hurts, did you? I have to say, I’d pay to see you try and stop him. He hates being drugged, but he sure loves his wine. We all deal with things in our own way.” She held up her hand. “And, I promise I’ll stop the fucking red sand, so you can shut your trap about it.”

Anders looked over at Fenris. The elf’s features had smoothed out in his sleep, making him appear younger. The lines of rage that usually twisted his face were gone, and Anders hadn’t realized before how much his anger had leaked out into his everyday expression.

Of course, he had spent as much time as possible staying away from him.

He felt responsible for Jack and Fenris now. He would make sure they survived, and at the very least, he could try and repair some of the damage he had inadvertently caused. Although he felt that Jack was right in that Anders was beating himself up too much, he couldn’t escape the fact that if he could do anything to ease the pain of what Cerberus had done to them, he would.

**

Fenris blinked groggily in the darkened room. He placed his palm next to him to leverage himself up, when his hand encountered smooth leather, instead of the thick pile of blankets he had been expecting. Fenris bolted upright, and his eyes darted around the room.

Why was he on one of the couches? What the hell had happe— His eyes landed on Jack, curled up on what passed for Fenris’ bed. He turned his head, and spotted a figure on the opposite couch. Anders was asleep, his long limbs sprawled out. One of his hands had fallen from his chest, and his arm dangled off the couch, his fingertips brushing the floor.  

Memory assailed Fenris, and he gritted his teeth in anger. The Salarian… He had drugged Fenris, and had taken some of his blood. Damn him.

Fenris slipped off the couch, and stood weaving on his feet. He took one unsteady step forward, then another, until he found his footing, and his muscles didn’t feel like jelly. Silently he walked over to Anders, and stood over him. Fenris’ hands clenched into fists.

He should kill him right now, and then move on to the Salarian. One quick strike, and Fenris could have Anders’ heart in his hand, crushing the life out of him before he could wake.

How dare they?

How fucking dare they!

He had been assured by Shepard that nothing like this would happen to him. He had  _warned_  Shepard what would happen if it did.

He had come because Jack was here, and he had been curious as to what could possibly drive her to join a mission that would assuredly get her killed. There were no credits in it for her, no material gain. Jack didn’t do things like this. It wasn’t in her nature.

He had stayed because he had seen a little bit as to why she had come. Jack had told him that Shepard had done right by her, and she was going to keep to her end of the bargain. Shepard had bought her loyalty with nothing more than the promise of finding Pragia. That he had delivered, had only cemented it.

But it hadn’t been Shepard that had delivered, not really. He had given Jack the means, but it had been Anders that had told her where she could find it.

Fenris glanced over his shoulder towards Jack’s sleeping form. She didn’t trust easily—neither did Fenris. But she seemed to trust Anders. If her word and her trust was what had brought Fenris to the Normandy, then Fenris needed to ask himself one question.

Was it enough?

With Shepard’s promise to find Danarius, yes it was.

Fenris was tired. He was tired of running from one system to another. He was tired of looking over his shoulder, of expecting a bullet in the back, of the fear that one day, one day, Danarius would find him again, and Fenris wouldn’t be able to say no.

His hands went lax. He wouldn’t kill Anders, or even Mordin. But he would make sure that they knew that he wasn’t to be trifled with.

With reflexes that were slightly dulled by the drug that hadn’t quite left his system, Fenris grabbed Anders by the throat with one hand, and covered his mouth with the other. Anders’ body jerked as he was startled awake. His eyes were instantly alert, and he went still.

The two men stared at each other, the only light in the room from the stars on the other side of the observation window. Neither of them so much as blinked, and Fenris could fell the pounding rhythm of Anders’ pulse in his throat as it thrummed against his fingertips.

Fenris could see the fear in Anders’ eyes, as well as the strength it took to not look away or cower in fright. The elf begrudgingly respected him for that. Most men would have at least tried to fight him or—

A searing cold shot up Fenris’ right leg, and he gritted his teeth at the pain. He could feel Anders’ lips twitch in a self-satisfied grin against his palm, and he quirked a blonde eyebrow at the elf. Fenris’ eyes narrowed, and he slowly removed the hand covering Anders’ mouth.

“Little bit nipply in here, isn’t it?” Anders rasped. “Maybe I should start a fire instead.” He glanced down and gave Fenris’ hand a pointed look. “Mind getting your fucking hand off my throat? You’ve already choked me once before, I’m not going to let you do it again.”

Fenris brought his face close to Anders until their noses were almost touching, and Fenris could feel Anders’ warmth breath on his skin. “How are you going to stop me?” he asked in a deadly whisper. “Your pet Turian isn’t here.”

“Oh, you have it all wrong.  I’m the one Garrus keeps on a leash. Turians and their kinky ways you know.”

“What are you babbling about?” Fenris asked between his teeth.

“I’m never one to kiss and tell.” Anders winked. “No, wait, that’s not right. I do kiss and tell, and tell, and tell. It’s more fun that way.”

If Fenris had been paying attention at all, he would have felt that Anders’ fingertips had left his leg, and were slowly making their way higher.

“In fact, do you want to hear about the time I healed Aria’s favorite dancer on Omega? You do know who Aria is, right?” Fenris wasn’t given time to respond before Anders plowed forward. “Anyway, so the poor girl had fallen off this high ledge she was dancing on, and broken her leg in two places. Now Mordin didn’t want to have anything to do with it—too mundane for him. Me on the other hand, I decided that it would pay to make Aria happy.”

What the hell was happening? Fenris couldn’t seem to look away from Anders guileless eyes, or stop listening to his inane story.

“Long story short, I fix the breaks, and she was even up and able to dance in a week’s time. Aria was so pleased, she sent over this Asari, who had the most talented hands I’ve ever felt. She would touch me… right… here.”

The breath left Fenris in a rush as Anders fingers closed around his groin, cupping his cock and balls through his jeans. Fenris’ mind short-circuited. No one touched him like that—ever. Not without his permission first.

The jovial light left Anders’ eyes. “What would you rather have? Your nuts frozen? Or your dick burnt to a crisp? Now get your fucking hand off my throat. I didn’t fight back the last time you attacked me, but I’ve had enough of this. I’m not what you think I am, so back off.” That slightly raised eyebrow was back. “Unless you like my hand here, then it would seem we would have something else to discuss.”

Fenris jerked his hand away from Ander’s throat and took a step back. The leg that had been encased in ice had already begun to melt, and it cracked and shattered when he moved. “You’re disgusting.”

Anders sat up and tilted his head to the side. “I can’t deny that one,” he quipped. “But what I’m not is your enemy. I can help you.”

Help him? No one could  _help_  him. Fenris could barely help himself. What the hell did Anders think he was going to be able to do? Didn’t he think that Fenris had looked for answers? Didn’t he think that Fenris had spent years running, and searching for a way to end his relentless pain?

“I don’t need your help.”

“Yeah?” Anders jerked a thumb towards the stack of bottles. “Well your collection of fancy, empty wine bottles says otherwise.” He sighed and scrubbed at his face. “Look, just give me a chance, all right? I know… I know that I have to shoulder some of the blame for what was done to you and Jack, I get it. But at least let me try and make it right.”

“Do you know a man named Danarius? Do you know where he is?” Fenris spat. “No? Then you cannot help me. I won’t be poked and prodded by anyone. I’ll deal with what I am on my own.”

“What do you have to lose? At best I might be able to help you. At worst I’ll completely screw up, and then you have my permission to kill me. Just… Just give me some warning before hand, okay?” Anders scratched at the stubble on his chin. “There are some things and people I wouldn’t mind doing before I die.”

Who was this man? Fenris couldn’t countenance it. No one offered help without looking for something in return. Anders had said that he felt responsible, but there had to be more to it than that.

Didn’t there?

“I’ve attacked you twice, and yet you still wish to help me? Why? What are you looking for?”

Anders’ eyes filled with resolve. “Absolution. If helping your prickly, but admittedly cute, ass will help me get it, then I will.”

Fenris ignored Anders commentary on his body, filing it away under ‘things that Anders seems to say because he’s an idiot’. “If I find out that this is a trick…” he warned.

“Trick?” Anders laughed. “If I was looking to trick you into anything, it would be into my bed.” He held up his hands when Fenris growled. “But… I think I would rather find someone who wouldn’t murder me in my sleep. No tricks.”

Something bloomed inside Fenris then. It was small, and at first he didn’t quite recognize it. it was hope. It was the hope that maybe, just maybe, Anders could do what he said, and find a way to end his pain. Every time Fenris moved, the eezo under his skin pulled and tugged. His body no longer tried to reject it, killing him in the process, but there were times that Fenris wish that it would.

He looked away. “Fine… But you will explain to me what you are doing every step of the way.”

“Agreed.” The tension visibly left Anders shoulder and he stood up. He rolled his neck on his shoulders, and Fenris heard the bones pop.

“Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to go to sleep in my own, comfy, comfy bed. How the hell do you and Jack sleep on that,” Anders gestured to Fenris’ bed, “whatever you call it?”

“Pretty well,” Jack called out from under the pile of blankets. “Most of the time I don’t have to listen to two assholes whipping out their dicks to see whose is bigger. Fucking Jesus Christ, shut up and let me sleep.”


	8. Chapter 8

Anders pressed his forehead against the cool tabletop. “Fuck…” he drew out slowly. “Why did I ever agree to get on this fucking ship?”

“Because you didn’t want to be stuck on Omega for the rest of your short life?” Garrus pointed out helpfully.

Anders turned his head up and rested his chin on the table to glare at Garrus. “Short? I’d be willing to bet I was a hell of a lot safer on Omega then the Normandy.”

 

Garrus took another spoonful of his food—what the hell was he eating anyway?—and slid it into his mouth instead of answering.

“All right,” Anders groaned and sat upright in his chair, “just come out with it. I know you’re dying to say something to me. I feel you  _thinking_  at me.” The mess was thankfully clear for once, and Anders and Garrus were the only two sitting at one of the long tables.

The turian made a production of chewing and then swallowing. “Me? I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Bullshit,” Anders snorted. “Out with it.”

“But if I  _was_  going to say something, it would have to be about your new best friend.”

 Anders rolled his eyes. “Here we go.”

“You remember the guy did try to kill you,” Garrus pushed on. “And now the two of you are spending hours together in the lab. You know you don’t have to prove anything to him, right? Let’s just say I hope you know what you’re doing.”

Every day for the past two weeks, Fenris had come down to the lab in order for Anders to run tests. He rarely spoke except to answer Anders’ questions in short, stoic replies. Anders was working on helping Fenris and Jack, plus assisting Mordin,  _plus_ compiling everything he knew about the Collectors and the Reapers for EDI to sift through. He was barely sleeping anymore.

Which frankly was a blessing as far as he was concerned.

The clawing song had started to overtake his dreams, pulling at his mind with promises that he knew—he  _knew_ —came with a steep price. So yeah, sleeping as little as possible was a boon.

“I know what I’m doing.” Anders gave Garrus a lopsided grin. “Don’t worry, my love. Soon, I will have time once more to tend to your various, and sometimes alarming, needs.”

Garrus let out a short bark of laughter. He held his hands up in surrender. “All right, I get it. I’ll let it go. Just, you know, say the word and I’ll make sure that the elf stops bothering you.”

“I think the elf is always going to bother me,” Anders muttered to himself.  Four days ago Anders had to finally admit that he had more than a passing attraction to Fenris. He found himself looking forward to the time they spent together in the lab, even though Fenris barely deigned to speak to him. It was a bit sick, and Anders was perfectly aware of that. But, shit, whenever the elf would open his lips, Anders felt his mouth go dry and his ears soaking up every syllable that Fenris would let tumble off his tongue. Anders disgusted Fenris, and he had no illusions on that score.  Still, Anders had never been one to take the easy route, even when he thought that’s exactly what he was doing.

It didn’t hurt to have a little, one sided attraction, right?

Right?

“Anders,” Joker said over the intercom system, “we’ve reached Horizon. Shepard and Fenris are already in the shuttle bay.”

Anders slapped his palms on the table and got to his feet. “Time to earn my keep. With any luck, the Collectors will have actually left something behind this time.” He gave Garrus a salute and turned to head to the elevator.

**

Life hated Anders.

Not only had the Collectors left a few things behind, things that Anders once would have loved to get his grubby hands on, but the fucking Collectors were  _still_  here.

A particle beam shot overhead, and Anders could feel its searing heat. “I’m serious, Shepard,” Anders yelled over the cracks of gunfire, “they try and take me, you put a bullet in me.”

“Will you get a hold of yourself,” Fenris snarled next to him. The elf popped up from behind a concrete wall and fired off a few rounds with his pistol before ducking back down again.

The three of them were pinned down, their backs pressed tightly against a short wall that had once contained a small garden. When they had first landed, Anders had thought that Horizon was a beautiful place. The sky was clear and blue, and there had been a soft breeze rustling through the lush, green trees.

That was until Anders had realized that the rustling was actually the sound of thousands of wings beating. The Collector insects had attempted to swarmed them, but thank fuck that Mordin was so brilliant, and they had so far kept their distance.

“I  _am_  perfectly calm!” Anders said, and ignored that blatant fact that his voice was a little hysterical. “People escape the Collectors all the damned time, nothing to worry about here!”

Shepard gripped Anders by the collar of his armor, and dragged him around to face him. “We’re going to make it out, Anders. Collectors can die like anything else. They bleed,” he flicked his eyes down to Anders’ hands, “and they burn. You know that. So let’s show them that they picked the wrong people to fuck with.”

“Wow…” Anders said when Shepard released him. He sank back against the barrier. “You sure know how to give a pep talk.”

**

The husk let out a shriek as it died, it’s blackened and shriveled heart in Fenris’ hands. With a single, fluid movement, Fenris immediately turned and hacked off another husk’s head, sending it rolling across the browned grass. He flicked the gore off the end of his blade and rushed into another pack that headed straight for him.

When he had asked Jacob to find him a sword, the Cerberus agent had given him a skeptical look. Fenris hadn’t backed down when Jacob had offered something else instead. He had his pistol, he had the eezo running under his skin, and he had needed a blade with a razor-sharp edge.

Fenris had no qualms about getting up close and personal when he killed. In fact, he preferred it. It was a skill he honed for the day when he met Danarius once more. There was not going to be a merciful bullet in the head for the scientist. Fenris was going to look the man in the eyes, and let him see that there was more than one monster in the room.

A husk ignited to his right, and Fenris spared a glance for Anders and Shepard behind him. The two of them were behind another concrete barrier, Shepard sighting husks down his scope, and Anders flinging fire from his hands. The husks weren’t that smart, and they were drawn towards the closest thing they saw. Once they had realized that, Fenris had walked out into the open, baiting the husks.

They were weak and died easily, but there were so many of them, a horrifying onslaught that didn’t seem to end. Fenris didn’t let himself think that these had once been humans from other colonies. Anything that had been human had been ripped from them long ago.

Black blood splattered across Fenris’ equally dark armor as he hacked at the husks that surrounded him. Every so often there would be a pop, and a husk would fall dead to the ground from a headshot. Sections of the dead grass were charred or burning, and ashes from incinerated husks were swept away by the wind and Fenris’ own feet.

He hadn’t been too happy when Shepard had insisted that Fenris wear one of the armor suits that the Normandy kept stocked. He had felt hampered in it, but as he fought and gained a feel for the thick, but flexible material encasing him from the neck down, he saw that Shepard had been right.

Fenris had kept his clawed gauntlets.

He lashed out with his hand, catching a husk in the face, tearing into what passed for its skin and puncturing its brain. When the last husk was down, Fenris stood panting amongst the bodies. He brushed his bangs from his face, smearing dark blood on his forehead.

“Good job,” Shepard said as he came out from behind the barrier, slinging his rifle over his shoulder.

Anders shook his hands and the flames that had engulfed them went out. “There has to be a ship on orbit somewhere,” he said. “They haven’t finished taking the colonists yet. Once the Collectors leave a planet, they’re gone—the colonists, the Collectors, and most traces of them.”

Rolling his eyes upwards to the darkening sky, Shepard sighed. “Fuck… Suggestions?”

“Take out the ship.” Fenris shrugged. “Prevent them from taking any more people off planet.”

“What about those already on the ship?” Anders asked incredulously. “You want us to just kill them?”

The skin around Fenris’ nose wrinkled as he snarled. “You are supposed to be the expert. Tell me, can those already gone be saved? Are we to sacrifice everyone on this planet on the off chance we could help them? Sacrifice ourselves? I say we help those still here. We take out the ship, and we also drastically reduce the number of Collectors. We stop anymore from coming planet side.”

Anders’ mouth opened and closed a few times. “You…”

“I what?” Fenris demanded. “I make sense? The gods forbid I do something like that. I’ll ask you again, can those people on the ship be saved?” Fenris realized that this was the most he and Anders had spoken to each other in weeks. He had been seeing the scientist almost every day, for hours at a time, but Fenris didn’t speak unless he was compelled to, and even then it was in short, quick replies.

If Anders wanted to help him so much then Fenris would let him, but he wasn’t going to become his friend, and he would be damned that he was going to die here.

Anders looked away, his lips pressed into a tight line. “No… If it was just the ship and not the colony as well there might be a chance, but…”

“But you can’t guarantee even that,” Shepard interjected.

“No,” Anders admitted reluctantly.

Shepard sucked in an audible breath though his nose. “All right then. Let’s figure out how we can take that sucker out of the sky.”

**

“Assuming total control.”

“Move!” Shepard shouted.

Fenris dove behind a tall stack of crates just as a beam zipped by the place he’d been standing, blasting a hole in the ground and charring the grass. That thing—the Reaper—hovered in mid-air, its spider-like legs dangling beneath it. It had started… chasing them, hopping from Collector to Collector like a parasite. Each time they had killed it, it had jumped to another body.

“Go!” Shepard yelled.

Fenris didn’t think twice, rushing out from behind the crates. In his periphery, he saw Anders and Shepard do the same thing, changing positions as the Collector floated inexorably onward. They had found out to their detriment that they needed to keep moving.

They were trapped in a dead end with the only way out closed off. The starport had one entrance, and they needed to stay in order to guard the cannons as EDI realigned them. The Normandy had firepower, but not the kind that was needed to take out the Collector ship, not without risking the Normandy’s crew. Using the GARDIAN lasers already on the planet had been their only option.

The Collectors had been waiting for them.

Fenris turned his head and glanced at Anders. The scientist clutched at his shoulder, his arm dangling uselessly at his side. Before they had realized that they needed to keep moving, Anders had been hit, Harbinger’s beam decimating his shields and cutting through Anders’ armor. The scientist didn’t look well, and Shepard couldn’t get to Anders to help him.

The commander was ensconced on top of a crate, taking shots at Harbinger with his rifle, before ducking down to avoid any of the Reaper’s lethal firepower.  

Fenris’ eyes darted from Harbinger, to Anders and back again, indecision warring in his eyes. “Fasta Vass,” he snarled. He was moving before he even realized that he had made the decision, darting out and running towards Anders.  Fenris slid to a halt when he reached him, his back slamming tightly against the crates. He gasped for air, his heart pounding in his chest. Without any warning, he gripped Anders’ wrist tightly and ripped his hand away from his wounded shoulder.

Anders bit off a strangled scream, and fresh blood poured down his armor, pumping sluggishly from the wound. He almost collapsed, and would have, if Fenris hadn’t wrapped his arms around his waist to keep him upright.

“Would medi-gel, help?” Fenris asked quickly.

The blood had drained form Anders’ face, leaving his skin pale and clammy. He blinked several times as he tried to focus on Fenris. “Better than nothing,” he gasped. He slammed his head back against a crate, his lips peeling back from clenched teeth when Fenris applied the gel.

“Move!” Shepard shouted.

Fenris darted his eyes to Anders’ face. Some of the color was returning to his skin as the gel eased the pain and began the process of healing. But the damage was extensive, the flesh sheared off almost to the bone. Anders needed professional help in a hospital, and he certainly wasn’t in any shape to fight.

With a muttered curse, Fenris slung Anders’ arm over his shoulder and wrapped his other arm around his waist.  “Walk!” he demanded. “Now!”

Anders’ head snapped up at the tone of command and he glared balefully at Fenris. “You would make a terrible doctor,” he croaked.  But he began to move all the same, helped along by the elf. Together, the two of them rushed out from behind their cover and began making for another series of stacked crates.

With every jostling step, Anders would moan in pain. The pop pop of Shepard’s sniper rifles resounded in the air, the commander screaming at the Reaper to gain its attention and keep it off Anders and Fenris.

But Harbinger was no mere Collector to be distracted so easily.

“Look out!” Shepard’s voice cried.

Fenris’ head jerked to the side to see the Reaper bearing down on them.

“Face your annihilation,” it intoned.

Anders’ face snapped towards it. “Shut up!” He flung his good hand out, and flames engulfed his palm. “I’ll show you why biotics are feared!” A massive ball of fire burst from his hand, larger than anything that Fenris had ever seen Anders do before. The elf could feel its intense heat blowing back at them. It crashed into the Reaper, and the creature screamed.

“I won’t let you harm another human!” The flames grew and danced along Anders’ arm. Fenris cried out and jerked away from him out of instinct as Anders’ injured arm burst into flames up to the elbow. Anders staggered on his feet from the loss of support, but he held his ground.

“Fenris, shoot it!” Bullets slammed into the Reaper from Shepard’s rifle, and Fenris pulled his pistol from his side and took aim.

Anders was losing control, the fire spreading past his elbows. He whipped fireball after fireball at the reaper, screaming in rage each time they hit. Dawning horror prickled up Fenris’ spine. Fenris knew that sound, he knew what kind of internal pain could cause a man to scream until his voice was hoarse, until he had no air left in his lungs. It struck something deep inside Fenris.

He knew that anger all too well.

Fenris shot at the creature and popped his heat sink, sending it to turn to ash on the ground. He slapped another one into his weapon mechanically. If Anders was going to give everything he had in order to destroy it, then Fenris could do no less.

Harbinger dropped to the ground, partially engulfed in flames. Fenris didn’t give himself time to think. His pistol slipped from his fingers, and he reached for his sword on his back. His brands flashed, and he was moving, running towards the Reaper, his feet eating up the distance. With a cry he leapt into the air, his sword arcing down. The blade punctured Harbinger’s carapace, the eezo just under his skin giving Fenris the strength to push the razor-sharp blade in deep.

Fenris ripped his weapon free, flipping it over in one fluid movement in his hands. With another cry, he hacked off the thing’s head cleanly, sending it to tumbling across the deadened grass.

There was a pained groan behind him, and Fenris turned in time to see Anders crumple to the ground. His arms were still on fire, no longer under control. Flames spread out form him across the dried grass, and Fenris dropped his sword and rushed over to the scientist.

He and Shepard reached Anders at the same time, and together they beat the flames back. Anders’ eyes were closed, and his breathing wheezed in and out through parted lips.

Fenris dropped to his knees and slapped Anders across the cheek.  “Wake up!” Next to him, he could hear Shepard demanding a pick up as soon as the cannons fired.

“Damn you,” Fenris growled. “You promised to help me.”  Fenris had never claimed to be someone that people could depend on for comfort. He didn’t think he had the kind of sentiment it took. He didn’t know what to say, or what to do. Those screams… They rung in his ears and for the first time since he had met Anders, he found himself regretting that he didn’t know more.

“Wake up…”


	9. Chapter 9

Shepard steepled his fingers together and rested his chin on the tip. “Chakwas knows what she’s doing.” His eyes ran over the bandaged and unconscious form of Anders on the bed. The soft beeping that sounded the rhythm of Anders’ heart announced that it was strong and steady.  Shepard sat back on the cool metal chair, and shifted to get more comfortable.

Although Chakwas was able to repair the extensive damage to Anders’ shoulder, she couldn’t do anything about the amp that had almost burned itself out. She had said she’d never seen anything like it, and didn’t want to mess with the experimental tech in case she caused more harm than good.

Anders was the only one that knew how it worked, and he couldn’t tell them.

 

Fenris leaned against Chakwas’ desk, crossing his legs at the ankle. Most of the crew had been in and out of med bay to see Anders, and Fenris had been the last to show. After he and Shepard had hauled Anders’ on board the Normandy and carried him to Chakwas, the elf had immediately turned around and left for his own room, locking himself inside.

That had been almost twenty-four hours ago.

“Then why won’t he wake up?” Fenris asked quietly. “If she is so good at her job, then he should be awake by now.”

“I don’t know,” Shepard admitted. “No one does. Mordin is looking into it, but it has something to do with his biotics.”

“Fool scientist fried his brain, didn’t he?”

“I don’t know, Fenris!” Shepard snapped. He looked away from the elf. “Sorry.

“Maybe if we had brought him back to the ship sooner instead of you reuniting with your lover, then we might have been able to prevent this,” Fenris hissed.

Shepard reared back as if struck. “Kaidan isn’t my lover, and it wouldn’t have made a difference.” He narrowed his eyes. “And why the hell are you concerned with Anders’ wellbeing all of a sudden? You can’t stand him.”

Now it was Fenris’ turn to look away.  “He’s been helping Jack. She’d be upset if he died.”

“Uh huh…  _Jack_  would be upset.” Shepard gave Fenris a knowing look. “Sure you don’t mean Jack  _and_  you?”

Fenris tapped a rhythmic on his elbow, his finger bouncing in an unknown tune. “Why not?”

Shepard blinked. “Why not what?”

“Why isn’t he your lover? I saw how you looked at him.”

John let out a pent up breath. He didn’t want to talk about this, he really didn’t. No one knew about this, not even Garrus. Okay, maybe Garrus did know. The turian could be perceptive about human behavior when he wanted. But as he watched Fenris, and the way the elf’s eyes continually searched Anders’ pale face, and then lift back up to the monitor above him, Shepard knew that Fenris just needed someone to talk, to say something—anything.

And Shepard… Shepard was tired of keeping this inside him, letting the regret fester and poison.

John nodded his head as he came to a decision. He rested his forearms on his thighs, his hands dangling between his legs. “No one knows about this, so I’m trusting you on this, Fenris.”

Fenris raised an eyebrow at that. “You’re… trusting me? Why?”

“Because sometimes people have to trust each other. To build trust, you have to first give trust. I’m giving my trust to you.”

“I take it back, Fenris said, “Anders isn’t the foolish one, it’s you.”

Shepard chuckled dryly. “Not the first time I’ve been called that. Just the first time it was done so well. People are usually much cruder when calling me a moron.” He sighed. “So, I’m giving you my trust, do you still want to hear it?”

Fenris hesitated, and then nodded slowly.

Shepard spoke as if each word were being pulled out of him, a splinter that just wouldn’t escape the tight grip of flesh. He talked about first meeting Kaidan, about Ashley. He told Fenris of falling in love with Kaidan, of keeping it a secret, so afraid to get involved with someone during such a chaotic time. Of the hard decision he had made on Virmire, and how Ashley had lost her life, because Shepard couldn’t do it, he couldn’t let Kaidan go. The guilt he had felt—still felt. How two years had gone by for Kaidan, and yet Shepard had remembered seeing him only a few months before.

How Kaidan’s words had cut him on Horizon, tearing out little pieces of Shepard that had only recently been stitched together.

“He thinks I’m a traitor,” John whispered. “He thinks…” He groaned and his head dropped back against the chair to stare up at the smooth metal ceiling. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“I could point out that your trust in him has led you to pain,” Fenris said baldly.

John gave a bitter laugh. “You could and you just did. I’m aware of that. But that doesn’t mean I should stop trusting people. Especially those under my command.”

“Ask Jack what trust got her.”

“We’ve already been over this,” Shepard pointed out. “Jack trusts you. The two of you are not the lone wolves that you want everyone to think you are.”

“You’re insane and foolish,” Fenris said.

“Gives damned fine speeches, though,” Anders croaked from the bed.

Both Fenris and Shepard jerked to their feet and rushed to the bed. Shepard noticed how Fenris stopped himself just before reaching Anders and hung back, his foot tapping a staccato on the glossy floor.

Anders peered up at them through bloodshot eyes. “Jesus… I hurt all over. What the hell did I do last night?” His eyes widened comically. “Oh, shit. I let Garrus fuck me, didn’t I? Damn it, I should have listened when he said he would hurt me.”

“Uh…” Shepard wasn’t sure whether to take Anders at his word or not, and decided to err on the side of caution. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Garrus promising me that he would be gentle,” Anders said in a deadpan. His lips twitched and then broke out into a smile. He started laughing. “Oh! Oh, you should see the looks on your faces!” He winced and groaned, clutching at his shoulder. “Ow…”

“Serves you right,” Fenris growled.

Gingerly, Anders touched the bandage on his shoulder. “I remember everything. At least, right up until after we killed that… thing.” He winced again. “Jesus that hurt.”

“Then stop touching it,” Fenris said dryly. “And you want me to trust you to help me. This isn’t inspiring confidence in your skills as a doctor.”

“I’ll have you know that I’m an excellent doctor.” Anders made a face that was more of a pout. His fingers went back to the bandage and began picking at the edges.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Shepard said as he reached out and stilled Anders’ fingers. “Let me call for Chakwas.”

Anders’ hand flopped back to the bed in resignation. “Fine.”

“EDI,” John began.

“Already called for her, Shepard. She’s on her way.”

“Thanks, EDI.” Shepard went back to his chair next to Anders’ bed. “Once Chakwas gives you the okay, you and I need to have a talk.”

**

Anders didn’t like the tone in Shepard’s voice. “About how you’re going to drop me off on Illium with a ton of credits to gamble away?”

Fenris snorted. “You’d get robbed and left for dead within the hour there.”

“I’ll have you know that I survived Omega just fine,” Anders shot back. “I could handle Illium.”

“I’m serious, Anders.” Shepard’s eyes moved over to Fenris and then flicked back towards Anders. “We need to talk.”

All right, Anders got it, he really did. Whatever it was, Shepard didn’t want to say anything in front of Fenris. Well, if the man was going to go that direction, then Anders could do nothing less than make things harder for him.

There was something about John’s tone of voice that Anders didn’t like. Shepard had lost that friendly affect that he usually had, and had gone all commander on Anders. Commanding tones might do it for Anders in the bedroom, but not when it was from someone he wasn’t currently fucking.

“Whatever you’ve got to say, you can say it in front of Fenris,” he told Shepard.

“Well I don’t want to hear it,” Fenris said, and he made to turn towards the door.

“Stay!” Anders blurted. He cleared his throat when Fenris turned back, a scowl on his face. “I mean uh…” he searched his brain for an excuse and came up empty. “Okay, I’ve got nothing.”

“This can wait for later,” Shepard assured him, his eyes narrowed in suspicion.

The door opened and Anders was saved form answering when Chakwas entered. She hurried over to the bed and glanced up at the monitor above Anders’ head. She asked him several question, and gently touched his bandage, peeling it from his skin. Anders answered her and looked at his wound. Chakwas had healed the injury, but now it was a mass of scar tissue, angry and red.

Anders blew out a breath and looked away. “Bandage on my back?” he asked, even though he already knew the answer.

“Skin graft,” she answered, confirming his suspicions. “You’ll need a few more in the weeks to come, but there will still be scarring. I could only do so much, the damage was extensive.”

“Thanks.” Anders swallowed. “I mean it.”

She smiled and patted him on his uninjured shoulder. “I want you to stay here for observation. You were unconscious for a long time, and I was getting strange readings from you.”

Anders’ heart seized. “Strange?” Oh, fuck… He’d been afraid of this very thing. That one day someone was going to notice something and want to probe further into things best left alone. “I’m sure it was just my amp. I might have overdone it a little bit on Horizon and—“

“That was a bit strange, but that’s not it. You were having some strange brain activity. I want to make sure that nothing has—“

“I’m fine,” Anders said in a rush.  “Don’t worry about it.”

“Chakwas, Fenris, will the two of you excuse us for a moment?” Shepard asked quietly. “I think Anders and I need to have our talk now.”

The doctor nodded and gave Shepard strict instructions to call her back in when he was done, and not to upset Anders too much before she left.

There it was, strangling Anders’ throat as Fenris looked back and forth between Shepard and Anders. That clawing fear, the knowledge that his past mistakes would never truly stay in the past, and that Anders would be forever beholden to them.

Fenris frowned at Anders. “No… No, I think I would rather stay,” he said carefully. He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against Chakwas’ desk.

Fine.

What had started as something to get Shepard to back off now had Fenris actually wanting to stay. Anders pressed his lips together in a tight line and he pushed himself upright on the bed. “What did you want to ask me?” He knew what it was. He could see it in the hardening of John’s eyes, turning them into steely chips of blue.

“You Indoctrinated, Anders? Because EDI has catalogued some strange brain activity for weeks now. She doesn’t seem to think so, but now I’m not so sure.”

“You know what I did on Calenhad, John,” Anders said flatly. “You know what happened to the whole lab. Did you ever wonder how I managed to stay sane?”

Shepard gave him a curt nod. “You gave me some bullshit about biotics, but that doesn’t cut it, Anders.”

“I really wanted you to let it go.” Anders caught Shepard’s gaze and held it unblinking. “It went further than the Collectors and the Reapers, my research. We were looking into anything that could reproduce what they could do to the mind. Cerberus came to a small colony and swept up the remains of research that had been conducted there. I think you know of it.”

“Zhu’s Hope,” Shepard whispered.

“Yes,” Anders nodded. “And then Noveria.”

“The Rachni Queen,” John intoned. “What the hell did you do Anders?”

“We… Cerberus had recaptured the queen. I…” Anders looked away then, staring down at the thin white blanket draped across his legs. “I let her take control of me.” He heard a sharp inhaled breath and glanced back up. “I had to know! I had to know what it was that she could do, and I couldn’t let any of the others take that chance. She was… she was my friend in a fashion. When we were one…” Anders struggled to put into words the song, the sound of completeness. “I helped her to escape, and she had promised to release me. But when Calenhad had become Indoctrinated she helped me, she kept a part of me sane and safe. It wouldn’t have lasted long. She was so far away then, and the pull of Indoctrination is strong, so I had to act quickly and get out of there. She helped me gain revenge on Cerberus.”

“She’s still a part of you, isn’t she?” Shepard accused. “Damn it, Anders. You should have told me this sooner. Has she been taking control of you?”

“No!” Anders shouted. “No, I would know if she was. I’ve been fighting her off, but she’s become… agitated.”

“Would the Collector and Reaper presence do that?” Fenris asked, speaking for the first time.

“I’ve thought of that,” Anders answered honestly. “But I just don’t know.” He buried his face in his hands. “I think she will always be a part of me now.” His head jerked up. “But I’m not dangerous, I can control this.”

“You let one of the most dangerous creatures in the galaxy in your mind, and you think you can control it?” Fenris asked incredulously.

“I’m not dangerous,” Anders repeated harshly. “I’m not the one that goes around attacking people unprovoked.”

“Unprovoked?” Fenris curled his lips in a sneer. “You know what Cerberus did to me, to Jack.”

“Stop it!” Shepard shouted. “Jesus, will you two give it a rest? You both got screwed over by Cerberus, join the damned club.” He pointed a finger at Anders. “Can you promise me that the moment you think that you are losing control, that you will come to me?”

That… That wasn’t what Anders had been expecting.  “Yes.”

“Good. You’re confined to this bed for another two days.” He then pointed at Fenris. “And you’re to stay here with him.”

“What?” Both Fenris and Anders spoke at the same time, and then they glared at each other.

“You heard me.” Shepard got to his feet. “I’m tired of the bickering. I only wish I could do the same thing to Miranda and Jack.” He walked to the door when Fenris’ voice stopped him.

“What makes you think I won’t just kill him or leave?”

Shepard glanced over his shoulder. “Because I’m trusting you.”


	10. Chapter 10

To: Garrus V

From: Anders

Subject: HELP!

Seriously. Shepard locked me in here with that insane elf.  Can’t you give Shepard a blowjob or something and sweet talk him into letting Fenris out?

 

To: Anders

From: Garrus V

Subject: Help!

I’m hurt that you would ask me that. I’m faithful to you, and yet you want me to touch another? I don’t think I can see you anymore.

**

To: Miranda L

From: Anders

Subject: official complaint

Did you know that Shepard has ordered Fenris and I locked in the medbay? I would like to point out, that this is stressful for me, and I am recovering from a disfiguring injury.  As such, I don’t know how well I will be able to recall my work on the Collectors and the Reapers, and might end up making costly mistakes.

This could be avoided if you came to the medbay and ordered EDI to open the fucking door.

Please be advised, that there is a very real chance that Fenris might pull my insides out and string them up around the medbay like Christmas lights. I wish to avoid this, and as someone who Timmy went out of his way to find, I would assume that he would not be pleased if you let me die.

Sincerely,

Anders

To: Anders

From: Miranda L

Subject: Regarding your complaint

Anders,

Your message has been received and logged into your personnel file.

I would like to point out to you, that since Shepard has told me numerous times that I do not run this ship, that there is nothing I can do.

If he pulls your organs out, we’ll put them back in before the funeral.

Sincerely,

Miranda L

**

To: Mordin S

From: Anders

Subject: Hypothetical Question

Is there anything you know about an elf’s physiology that would help me to incapacitate one? Keep in mind I am on heavy painkillers and am still wounded.

You know… for science and all.

To: Anders

From: Mordin S

Subject: Intriguing

Elves have been bred over the centuries to endure much. With you wounded, and your critical thinking skills compromised, I would advise you to not antagonize him.

Of course if he does kill you, I will avenge you. That’s assuming we both survive the Omega Four Relay. Can’t kill him before then, would cause too much trouble. Need time to finish my experiments. Rest assured that you would be avenged eventually.

**

Fenris gritted his teeth as Anders’ omni-tool blipped yet again, alerting the blonde to another message. They had been in the medbay for a mere twenty minutes before Anders began to furiously message, his face panicked.

He sat back in Chakwas’ chair, his legs crossed at the ankle and his arms folded over his chest. You couldn’t just lock two people in a room together and expect them to get along. Life didn’t work that way. But Fenris wasn’t under any illusion that was what Shepard was doing.

He was telling Fenris that he trusted him.

Somehow, somewhere along the way, Shepard had figured out that Fenris didn’t care what someone said, it was their actions that mattered. Shepard was telling Fenris without words that he trusted him not to hurt Anders, and to do the right thing and attempt to get along with the other man.

Shepard could screw himself.

As Fenris watched Anders send one message after another, he couldn’t help but think that Shepard could have done this in a million other, less childish ways. On the other hand, he knew that Shepard was desperate. They were on their way to Illium to gather two more members of their crew. With each person Shepard recruited, they got closer and closer to being ready to go through the Omega Four Relay, and what might be a certain death. Even if they didn’t like each other, Shepard needed them all to work together as a team. Privately, Fenris thought that was a bit much to ask from the lot he had collected so far.

Still, it was strange to have someone trust him the way Shepard was. He could see now why Jack had agreed to join on this mission. No one had ever told either of them that they were not only needed, but they were valued as a person, not for just what they could do. He had noticed a softening in Jack that hadn’t been there before. Her eyes were less tight around the edges, and had stopped darting in every corner, waiting for the inevitable backstab.

In his most secret of desires, Fenris wanted that for himself.  He wanted to know what it felt like to stop running, to still his body and his thoughts long enough to take stock of who and what he was, to live in the now, to make plans for the future. Shepard was offering that to him, and fuck if Fenris wasn’t starting to think that it might be possible.

Speaking of Jack…

There was a slam on the glass next to him, and Fenris swiveled his head to the large windows that overlooked the mess. Jack grinned back at him, the thick glass between them. Her eyes darted towards Anders who had slipped gingerly from his bed and padded over. She glanced from Anders to Fenris and then back to the blonde, a mischievous spark in her eyes that Fenris knew to be wary of.

He had his eyes resolutely on Jack, and not on Anders, who was wearing only a pair of cotton, low slung pajama bottoms. Pointing first to Anders and then to Fenris, she slid her finger in the tight circle of her fist, drawing the digit in and out. She threw her head back and laughed, even though Fenris and Anders couldn’t hear her.

Fenris rolled his eyes while Anders mimed slitting his throat and pointed at Jack.

“You’ll only encourage her,” Fenris murmured. “Was she the one you were messaging so diligently?” He was not asking because he cared if Anders and Jack talked on the extranet all the time.  He didn’t give a fuck if the two of them stayed up late into the night talking to each other, laughing at jokes and—

He didn’t care.

“Jack was the last one,” Anders admitted. “This seems to be some great joke to everyone else.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re acting like a child,” Fenris pointed out as he watched Jack mimicking giving a blowjob and then laughing again.

“Not yet I’m not. You’re about to see me acting like a child.” It was all the warning Anders gave him before the blonde turned his back to the glass, hooking his thumbs in the waistband of his pants. Fernis turned his head and couldn’t look away as he watched Anders yanked them down. He bent at the waist and wiggled his bare ass at Jack.

Fenris could feel the heat spreading up his face, crawling to the tips of his ears, and he yanked his eyes away, but not before running them over the curve of Anders’ well-muscled backside. He and Jack shared a look of horror before Jack slapped her hands over her stomach, her mouth opening in laughter. Tears ran out of her eyes, smearing her makeup and creating tracks of black over her cheeks. Just when Fenris thought he couldn’t be even more horrified, Anders proved him wrong by walking backwards to the glass and pressing his ass against it.

Chakwas’ chair slid on its wheels to slam into the wall on the other side of the room when Fenris shot to his feet. He had a moment to see the various expressions of dismay on the poor crew that were currently eating in the mess before Fenris spun around, turning his back on the whole debacle.

His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and he squeezed his eyes shut tightly. “Will the two of you please stop embarrassing yourselves?” If there was a hint of pleading in his voice, Fenris thought he could be forgiven for that.

“Sorry,” Anders muttered. It didn’t escape Fenris’ notice that he didn’t sound sorry in the least. “I hate being locked up. There was a period of time for about a year where I was kept in seclusion to do my work. I hated every minute of it. No one to talk to, just me and my research. Sometimes I wonder if Cerberus didn’t do it to punish me.”

“Why would they punish you if you were one of their top scientists?” Fenris asked before he could snatch the words back.

“Alliance was sniffing around me at the time. I think they wanted to recruit me away from Cerberus. Some of the shine was wearing off, and I was a bit tempted. Cerberus gets wind of it, and bam, sent into seclusion. I have to say it worked. I was so damned glad to be out of there and around other people that I did everything they asked of me. I should’ve done the smart thing and ran.” He tapped Fenris on the shoulder. “She’s gone now.”

Fenris turned and glanced at the window. There was an unfortunate outline of Anders’ ass on the glass, and an even more unfortunate lipstick print courtesy of Jack.

She had kissed his ass.

Anders followed Fenris’ line of sight. “I’m going to regret that when I’m off these painkillers, aren’t I?”

Fenris chose not to answer the question. “Jack knew that I would not be comfortable being locked in a room like this. She was only trying to get my mind off of it.”

“Ah…” Anders looked around the room, taking in the medical equipment. “Shepard wasn’t thinking.”

“He was,” Fenris said flatly. He walked over to the chair and rolled it back into place before sitting on it once more. “Shepard seems to know us better than we know ourselves.”

“You mean he has good Cerberus intel.” Anders sat on the edge of the bed.

“That’s not it. You don’t become a Spectre by not knowing how to read people.” As soon as he had said it, Fenris realized something that should have come to him sooner. It was almost painful, a dull ache that throbbed with every beat of his heart, and he drew in a sharp breath, letting it out slowly.

He wasn’t going to like this.

But it had to be done.

“I apologize for overreacting and hurting you when we met in front of the showers. I… I shouldn’t have done it.” Fenris’ eyes spotted a loose thread on his jeans, and he began picking at it, pulling the dark string free, in the same way he was pulling words from his lips.  “My only excuse is that I do not trust easily. I am on a Cerberus ship, with only Jack and Shepard’s word that I am safe here.” When there was nothing in response but cloying silence, Fenris slowly raised his eyes.

Anders stared back at Fenris, a lopsided grin on his face. “Wow… Maybe I fried my amp more than I thought I did. Did you just apologize to me?”

Fenris narrowed his eyes in sudden anger. “If you wish, I could do something to make you hate me once more.”

“Whoa!” Anders held his hands up. “I never hated you.” He carefully lowered them. “Once you get passed all the,” he waved his hand to encompass Fenris, “prickly bits, you’re a pretty good guy. You tried to save my life on Horizon.”

Fenris dropped his eyes back to his pants. “I only did what anyone else would have done.”

“Now that’s a lie if I’ve ever heard one. We both know that most people would have given me up for a liability and tried to save their own skins. Admit it, you like me.”

“You…” The string snapped from his jeans and he gripped it tightly in his fist as he glanced up at Anders. “Do you always say what comes to mind, or do you have some sort of filter at all?

“You like me!” Anders said in a singsong voice. “And if I didn’t have a filter, then I would tell you how much I want you to bang me.”

It felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. That was the only explanation that Fenris had for why he couldn’t seem to breath or form words. He sputtered like an idiot. “I… You… Why did you…”

Anders grinned and waved Fenris’ poor excuse of an attempt to speak. He glanced up at the ceiling. “So now that we’ve established that Fenris doesn’t hate me, and that I want him to do naughty things to me, can he go now?”

Just like that Fenris could breathe again, sucking in a lungful of air. He needed to remember to be careful around Anders. The man had been Cerberus once, and had eluded them for years before Shepard had found him. He hadn’t gotten to where he was today by being stupid. Even if some of his actions said otherwise. He wanted Fenris out of the room as much as the elf did. If that meant spreading a few lies, then so be it.

But then why was disappointment lodged in the pit of Fenris’ stomach, weighing him down like a rock?

Because people didn’t want Fenris. They only wanted him for what he could do. Shepard and Jack were the exception to the rule.

Anders was no different.

But as EDI silently acknowledged the exchange by opening the door to the medbay, Fenris had to wonder if that was even true. He couldn’t trust words, but he could trust actions, and Anders had done nothing but show Fenris that he didn’t want to hurt him, that he wasn’t what Fenris thought he was.

And shouldn’t that count for something.

He felt the tips of his ears burn once more, and he abruptly stood. “I… Uh…” He grimaced and tried again. “We will speak again once you have a clearer head.”

Anders waved him off and slid back under the covers of the bed. “Some would argue that you’ll be waiting a while then.”

Fenris got a foot away from the door when there was an ominous blip behind him. He glanced back over his shoulder to see Anders staring at a message on his omni-tool.

“She took a fucking picture, and sent it to everyone on ship!”


	11. Chapter 11

Anders stared at Zaeed in disbelief. “What did you just say?” The Normandy had docked hours ago in at Illium and most of the crew were waiting for Shepard to return with Miranda, Garrus, and the Justicar known as Samara. They’d all been promised a day on the asari planet, and Anders was going to take advantage of that god damn it!

 

Ever since Horizon, Anders had been confined to one of four rooms—the lab, the medical bay, his own room and the mess. Around and around and around he went to each one every day. It wouldn’t have been so bad if people would stop leaving pictures of his ass all over the ship for him to ‘find’. Sure, it was pretty funny the first few times, but now it was getting ridiculous. To make matters worse—stranger?—Anders had acquired a shadow.

Fenris followed him everywhere and it was more than a bit unnerving. Oh, sure, the elf said that it was because Anders had promised to help Fenris with his chronic pain, but they both knew what the real reason was.

Anders just had to open his damned mouth.

Here was the problem, though. Anders had been fully aware of what he had been doing and saying.  The painkillers hadn’t done more than what they were supposed to. Except for the tiny fact that Anders’ inhibitions had been lowered. Not by much, but enough that his normally fragile filter, the one with the holes in it large enough to fly the Normandy through, might as well not have been there.

The bottom line was that he couldn’t blame it solely on the drugs—as much as he really would like to. No, Anders was the kind of person where given the slightest bit of leeway, he would run with it, not only crossing over the line, but snuffing it out with his feet as he went. Some people would call it a personality flaw, but Anders chose to think that it made him daring and a bit interesting.

If some people thought he was annoying, that was their problem.

Of course it had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion, but his life would have been boring without mischief in it. There were a few people that had questioned him to his face if he was even a medical doctor. At one point, he’d been forced to dig up his medical license to prove it.  The look of horror on the man’s face, as if he couldn’t comprehend that this man who didn’t seem to take anything seriously had been found competent enough to garner a license, had been worth the trouble.

So here he was in the mess with Fenris, Jack and Zaeed. A motley group if ever there was one. Fenris sat next to Anders, and the scientist resolutely kept his eyes on Zaeed as the grizzled mercenary told yet another story. He knew what Fenris wanted, but Anders was reluctant to give in. It wasn’t fair of him, but here they were, locked in stubborn silence over ‘the thing Anders had said’.

Truth be told, Fenris frightened him. The elf was intense in everything he did. Even his silence was intense, his eyes boring into the side of Anders’ head. So he instead focused on Zaeed.

“Why does that name sound familiar?” he asked. Anders had been listening with half an ear when a name had caught his attention.

“Isabela,” Zaeed intoned, “Helluva girl. I watched that bitch take down a freighter with a five man crew. Not one of those bastards was injured, and by the time she was done the ship and its cargo was hers.”

“Pirate?” Anders asked with dread.

“Hey!” Jack had swiveled her chair around and straddled it, her arms draped over the back. “I know Izzy. I ran with her for a couple of months. She hooked up with an elf and I jetted out of there. Couldn’t stand listening to them screw all the time.”

“Zevran,” Zaeed nodded. “He was with her. I got fucked over because I was supposed to be guarding that fucking freighter. Lost my goddamn pay because of them. I wasn’t angry, a beautiful takedown like that deserved to be admired.”

“You didn’t tell me you knew another elf,” Fenris told Jack quietly.

Jack rolled her eyes. “Don’t get your panties in a twist. I know there aren’t many of you outside Batarian space, but he was a Crow. That’s different shit and you know it.”

Anders was momentarily sidetracked from his horror that Jack and Zaeed knew Isabela. He’d met her once when he’d been in college. He’d been young and full of himself. He had been working on a project that would be the foundation for the biotics he currently had. As he’d been drinking at a club one night, he’d met her and decided there was an application for the electricity that ran through the amp of his project. Isabela had dubbed him Sparkle Fingers.

“Crow?” There was so much that Anders didn’t know about the Elves. They were a culture that had been almost completely destroyed, and the Batarians rarely let them out of their sight.

“Batarians aren’t known for being subtle,” Zaeed answered. He rocked back in his chair and plopped his booted feet on the table, his hands going behind his head. “Some of the elves get trained as assassins. They’re the few that are allowed off world. Blighters are nasty and you usually don’t see them coming. Almost as bad as drell assassins. I have a hard rule not to fuck with Drell or Elves. Kept my ass alive.” He glanced over at Fenris, sizing him up. “Wouldn’t mind having you at my back in a fight. Can’t shoot worth a damn, but that overlarge razorblade you forced Jacob to make for you means you don’t need a gun.”

Fenris and the mercenary stared each other down. Zaeed inclined his head in a small show of respect, and Fenris returned the gesture.

“Ugh.” Jack wrinkled her nose. “Are you guys done seeing which one has the bigger set of tits? Cause I think Izzy has you both beat in that department.”

Fenris sighed in exasperation as Zaeed threw his head back and laughed. “You’re a crazy bitch, but you’re not half bad yourself.” Zaeed dropped his feet to the floor with a thud. He leaned closer to the others.

“I have it on good authority that Isabela is on Illium. Shepard is crazy if he thinks that he’s going to find Thane Krios without local help. He doesn’t know the first place to look.”

“Didn’t Garrus say an old friend of Shepard’s is on Illium?” Anders asked.

“Liara T’Soni,” Zaeed confirmed. “Out of my price range, but a damned fine information broker. But you don’t get to Krios’ reputation by letting an information broker know where you are. No, Isabela will know where Krios is, mark my words. That bitch has her fingers in everything on Illium. She might not know what’s happening on another planet, but she knows Illium. Has a stake in a brothel there called the Blooming Rose. Clients like to talk and she gets the information. T’Soni deals in bigger things.”

Anders gave a mental wince every time Zaeed called Isabela a bitch. It would be a crap shoot on how Isabela herself would have reacted. She’d either laugh in his face, own up to it, or sliced out his tongue,  _while_  laughing and owning up to it.

**

Fenris bided his time, and when Mordin left the lab, he slipped by him with only a quick warning glance given by the Salarian. Anders had his back to the door and was hunched over as he sat on a small stool. Fenris could hear him muttering to himself as he worked, and the elf wondered if Anders realized it was a trait he shared with Mordin. He had certainly heard the Salarian do it often enough.

Reaching behind him, he touched the holo-lock switching it from green to red. They’d been playing this game of pretend for too long and Fenris was getting sick of it. “We need to talk,” Fenris informed Anders’ back.

He saw the scientist’s shoulders tense as Anders ducked his head, feigning intense concentration. “About what? I’m very busy.”

“Then I’ll wait.” Fenris crossed the lab and snagged a stool, wheeling it over to Anders. He deliberately placed himself next to Anders as he sat down. There was an array of tools spread across the worktable, along with a partially disassembled amp. A bright light shone down from a lamp above Anders’ head, illuminating each piece of the amp in detail. A screen on the wall in front of Anders worked rapidly as it ran diagnostics on a piece that Anders was currently scanning.

Anders’ eyes darted over to Fenris and then turned resolutely back to the screen. “You’ll be waiting a while then.”

“That’s all right,” Fenris assured him, calling Anders’ bluff. “I have nothing urgent.”

He didn’t miss the way Anders’ jaw tightened, a muscle at the joint jumping in agitation. “What is it you want, Fenris?”

“You know what I want,” Fenris replied. “I want answers.”

“About your brands? I’m working on Jack’s amp right now. If you come back tomorrow I can—“

Fenris wasn’t about to let him get away with playing dumb. “Don’t be obtuse. You know what I’m talking about. I gave you time to bring it up yourself, but since you persist in pretending that you didn’t say it, then I have to be the one who will do it.

“You confuse me, Anders. You keep secrets behind that smile of yours, but you are also horribly honest at the same time, owning up to the things you have done. Just when I think I have you figured out, you say or do something that makes me reevaluate you.”

Anders turned his head to look at him then. A grin appeared on his face, but his eyes were guarded. “So basically I annoy the shit out of you.”

“More confound. I…” Fenris hesitated. Talking about his more personal thoughts and feelings never came easy to him. He never trusted anyone to not use them against him. In the lab, opening yourself up like that had only lead to pain. Fenris had learned early on to keep his mouth shut and his face expressionless.

“No one has ever offered to help me without wanting something in return.” Fenris’ words rushed from his lips. Best to say it quickly before his apprehension overcame him and he faltered altogether.

“I don’t want—“

“Let me finish,” Fenris snapped without any heat. He jerked his eyes away from Anders to stare at the tiny instruments the scientist had used to pull the amp apart. “I do not understand what you want from me. You offer to help me, you essentially saved my life on Horizon. You told EDI that… that you…” The elf’s hands curled into fists on his lap. “Then you deliberately ignore what you said, as if it were nothing and I…”

He trailed off when Anders began to chuckle. It started as small huffs of breath that escalated quickly. Fenris pushed to his feet and turned his back on Anders. “If you wish to do nothing but laugh at me, then I will take my leave.”

Pain sliced through the elf and he ruthlessly shoved it aside. He had been right in thinking that it had been pointless to speak to Anders about this. He should have let it go as Anders seemed to want to. But once the thought had infiltrated his mind, he hadn’t been able to stop himself. Images of how it would be between them, Anders laid out in front of the observation window, the light from the stars playing over his sweat-slick skin as he arched into Fenris’ touch. Hearing Anders’ moans resounding in the room, reaching a crescendo as his body tightened around the elf’s cock. Fenris had known better, he had known how it really was, but he was damned if he could stop the images from playing in his mind whenever he saw Anders.

Jack had told him that he was making puppy eyes at Anders. It wasn’t true, but it wasn’t a quite a lie either. The treatments that Anders had carefully been giving him were helping. Anders had come up on the idea that the flesh at the edges of the eezo were constantly fighting with the mineral. He had started Fenris on anti-rejection drugs and given him some medication to rub into his skin. The fact that he was feeling less pain than he could ever remember without the aid of alcohol and a clear head, had given him a few perspectives on his life.

Maybe it had been too soon to force a conversation like this, but Fenris had never been good at these things.

He heard Anders’ stool roll back. “No! Wait, that’s not why…” Anders’ hands grabbed Fenris and the elf let him turn him around. Anders’ eyes weren’t guarded now, but full of dismay.

“I wasn’t laughing at you.” Anders’ eyes searched Fenris’. “I was just relived. You’re just as freaked out by me as I am you.”

“I…” Fenris started.

The corner of Anders’ lips curved up in a crooked grin of wonder. “Shit, you are. I said I wanted you and that scares you. Do you think that’s why I helped you?” Fenris opened his mouth to reply, but Anders kept going. “You do… Jesus, that’s not why, Fenris. I would never… I know what you think of me, but I would never do something like—“

Something came over Fenris then, a compulsion he was helpless against. He darted forward crushing their lips together. He swallowed Anders’ words. He didn’t think that Anders would do something so heinous. Not really. It was Fenris himself that he thought so little of. Fenris was under no illusion as to what he was like. He could be cruel so easily, his bitterness and self-loathing manifesting into biting words that sliced and kept others away. But Anders wasn’t one to be kept away. The scientist kept coming, brushing off everything that Fenris did where others faltered. The only person that Fenris had ever let get this close to him had been Jack, and that was because they had a common hate, born in the labs on Pragia. Others might know what had happened to them, but they could never truly understand the way the two of them could. That kind of knowledge brought people together.

But in a way, Anders did understand. He had his own anger, his own need for vengeance, for justice. Fenris had never met anyone like him.

Anders gasped in surprise against Fenris’ lips and then he was returning the kiss, his head tilting to the side and slanting over Fenris’ mouth. Their lips moved over each other, their tongues darting into wet, open mouths. Every so often they would break apart for just the barest moment to breathe, to inhale air thick with arousal and need, before coming back together for more. Fenris didn’t think he could ever get tired of kissing Anders. The scientist kissed the way that Fenris had imagined he would, openly and with no fear, no hesitation.

Anders slipped an arm around Fenris’ waist and drew him in. The elf groaned as he felt the proof of Anders’ arousal against his abdomen, and his hands moved up to thread through Anders’ hair, dislodging his ponytail. The silky strands fell around Anders’ face, tickling Fenris’ cheeks. Anders’ stubble covered jaw were rough against Fenris’ lips, abrading his skin as the kiss went on and on and on, spiraling deeper into a dance of lips and tongue and sensation.

Fenris had never been so turned on in his life. His cock twitched in his pants, and he found himself grinding against Anders, seeking more, more, more. It was just a kiss, just a single fucking kiss, but Fenris knew it was much more than that.

“Anders, Fenris, Commander Shepard would like for the two of you to come to the shuttle bay.”

Fenris reared back with a gasp, his eyes darting to the corner of the lab where EDI’s hologram bobbed on its pedestal.

“Sorry to interrupt, but you are needed.” Fenris could have sworn EDI’s hologram grinned at them before it winked out.


	12. Chapter 12

Shepard didn’t see the Illium skyline and the beauty it offered. Tall spires stretched towards the sky, and the setting sun spilled red and orange hued rays between them. He didn’t hear the myriad vendors that called out to him, beckoning for him to see their wares. Everything could be bought in Illium. Everything was for sale. Illium could have been Omega on a grander scale. But the Asari had built Illium to hide the reality of the planet, burying the drugs, sex, and mercs under tons of shining metal towers, placing a veneer of respectability that the exchange offered.

It fooled no one.

John didn’t slow his strides for Anders, Fenris, and Jack, forcing them to trail in his wake. He didn’t hesitate as he passed by the stairs that led to Liara’s office. His hands clenched into fists. He couldn’t afford to talk to her, not when his nerves were still raw from their last conversation. Damn it, he needed her with him, needed her advice, her softly spoken words of encouragement.

He could have talked to Garrus, but the Turian wouldn’t have understood, not the way Liara would have.  But she’d turned down his offer to join him on the Normandy. So the words had stuck in his throat, the need to confide in her and purge the churning in his gut.

 

He went to sleep with it every night, and woke up with it every morning—the gnawing, relentless pain. Fuck, with a few words Kaidan had sliced John apart. Shepard just wanted it gone, wanted the accusations to stop ringing in his ears. By the time they’d docked at Illium, Shepard had all but run off the ship in search for Samara. He’d needed a purpose, a mission to get his mind off of his chaotic emotions. He’d found his escape at the end of his scope, where nothing but the target mattered. Garrus knew something was up, but John couldn’t talk about it with him just yet, not with his emotions so raw, an open wound that oozed, infecting all it touched.

The second he’d deposited Samara on the Normandy, he’d turned right around and left the ship, taking Jack, Anders, and Fenris, with him. The mission was what he needed. He was a soldier first and foremost, and he had begun to forget that very basic fact of his life. He couldn’t blame Kaidan for his suspicions, but damn it, he should have trusted Shepard. It was as if their years of friendship had meant nothing in the end. Maybe John should have contacted him, but the things that Kaidan had accused him of…

John gritted his teeth. No, he wasn’t going to think about this anymore. He needed to do what he did best—compartmentalize his priorities and emotions in order to get the job done. There would be time for regrets later when the job was finished.

He went over the parameters in his head as he weaved through the crowd near the carport.

Find the pirate known as Isabela. Jack had been friends with her once, or at least that’s what Liara had told him. Jack had only laughed when he’d asked.  Get Isabela to tell him where Krios was. Find Krios and get him to agree to the mission.

Shepard could sleep when he was dead.

On the surface it seemed easy enough, but Shepard hadn’t survived for as long as he had by assuming something was going to be easy.

His lips twitched in a self-deprecating smile. Case in point, a supposedly easy mission had gotten him killed the last time.

He stopped next to a sleek, red car and waved his omni-tool at the kiosk beside it. The kiosk registered the car to him and the doors clicked open as it chirped at him.

“Who’s driving?” Jack asked.

“I am.” John slid into the driver’s side.

“I call shotgun!” Anders cried.

**

Anders stumbled out of the car. He straightened and whirled on Shepard as the commander got out of the driver’s side.  The car automatically closed the doors behind them with a whoosh of hydraulics. “What the fuck?” he yelled.  “How the hell did you pass the criteria to become an N7 with driving like that? You guys are supposed to be the elite, the human badasses of the galaxy.” He pointed to a long scrap on the passenger side, the paint peeled back to reveal gleaming metal. “You hit a building for fuck’s sake!”

“He’s got a point, Shepard.” Jack put her hands on her hips and eyed the damage. “That was kind of fucked up.”

“Maybe if you had gotten more than a few hours of sleep in the past few days, instead of heading out again, you would have been more coherent to drive,” Fenris said softly.

Shepard’s eyebrows drew down sharply. “One, I’m fine. Two, if you don’t like my driving, keep your opinions to yourselves. And three, we’re here in one piece.” He gestured to the building he had parked in front of. The Blooming Rose looked like any other building on the street. It was lit up with bright, neon lights, meant to outshine and outdo its competitors. The whole district was lit up brighter than a sun going super nova. Lights flashed and music boomed from partially opened doors. Women and men from all races sat in windows in various states of undress, beckoning the gawkers that milled around the streets.

Shepard didn’t wait for them to respond. He walked by them and entered into the building, leaving them to follow. Anders was getting a little sick of it. Something was up with their fearless leader, and it was more than a bit unnerving. Gone were the pep talks and stirring speeches. Anders wasn’t sure what was in their place, and he didn’t think he was going to like it when he found out.

Jack cursed under her breath and followed Shepard with Fenris in tow.

Anders didn’t bother to hide that he was checking Fenris out as the elf walked away. God, but EDI had horrible timing. That kiss between them had been unexpected, wonderful, and terrifying, wrapped up in heat and need. He just had to hope that Fenris wanted to continue where they had left off. That it wasn’t going to be a onetime thing. Fuck… When was the last time he’d wanted more than a one night with someone?

He realized he’d been staring at the closed door of the Blooming Rose for some time, and shook his head to bring him back to the here and now.

**

Anders should have known that the way his life went, whenever something good happened, the universe had to balance it out with something either horrifying, or humiliating.

Right now there was a little bit of both.

Isabela had been just as Anders had remembered her. Dark hair, lots of cleavage, and knowing smiles coupled with sharp eyes. She had taken one look at them and motioned for them to follow her to the back of the Rose. Apprehension had slid down Anders’ skin as her and Jack had chatted while Isabela had led the way. He didn’t like the way she had looked back at him and winked.

She was up to something, and when Isabela was up to something, it meant that things were going to get messy quick.  He wasn’t the only one that felt that way as they walked through the maze-like corridors of the Rose. They passed by closed doors, and every so often they could hear cries of pleasure from behind them.  He saw Shepard’s hands twitch, and at one point the commander almost reached for this pistol at his side, his eyes on Isabela’s back.

“Keep your eyes open,” Shepard muttered next to him. Anders nodded in acknowledgement and he saw Fenris do the same in his periphery.

Isabela came to a large set of doors. Her hands flew over the holo-lock and the door whooshed open. “My lair, gentlemen.” She said with a flourish of her arm. “Oh, and I think there’s a guest of mine inside that knows Anders here. Small galaxy…”

Shepard didn’t even try to hide it when his hand went to his pistol, curling his fingers around it. Isabela eyed him for a moment and then smiled, shrugging her shoulders. “If I had wanted to kill you I could have done it by now. So suspicious…” She raised an eyebrow at Jack. “Are they always this way?”

“What can I say?” Jack threw over her shoulder as she stepped inside. “I run with a bunch of pussies now.”

Anders opened his mouth to retort when they heard a scream from inside the room. Without even so much as a glance at each other, the three of them ran inside, rushing by Isabela with weapons drawn.

The room was a spacious living quarters, with a living room in the center, a large kitchen, and a bedroom off to the side. It was all open and decorated in gaudy shades of deep red and gold. Anders had the insane thought that all this gold couldn’t be real, when his brain caught up to what he was looking at in the center of the room.

An elf with tanned skin and shoulder length blonde hair had Jack in his arms and he was whirling her about. When he turned, Anders could see the lines of a tattoo trailing down the side of his face.

Jack hit him upside the head with a closed fist. “Fuckin’ put me down, Zevran.”

But that wasn’t what had Anders stumbling to a halt.

A tall, shirtless man wearing nothing but a pair of tight leather pants stood next to them. Laughter died on his lips when his eyes landed on Anders.

“Holy shit!” Anders burst out. Aedan Cousland, one of the last people Anders had wanted to set eyes on stared back at him.

“I knew it!” Isabela cried from behind him. “I thought to myself, ‘Isabela, I think the Anders that Aedan knew is the one you spent that delicious evening with once’.”

Just when things couldn’t have gotten worse, Aedan turned his eyes on Shepard. “Commander…”

He crossed his arms over his chest, those ridiculous muscles that Anders remembered, bulging. Aedan narrowed brown eyes that were almost black on Shepard and tilted his head to the side. He had more grey streaking his hair than Anders could recall seeing before, a sharp contrast in his shaggy, ink black hair.

“Warden-Commander Cousland,” Shepard said in response. Out of the corner of his eyes, Anders watched as Shepard holstered his pistol. “What are you doing off of Thedas?”

“Trying to catch a ship to Orzammar,” Aedan replied candidly. “What are you doing not dead? I saw the vids of your funeral. More Alliance bullshit?”

Anders felt a sigh escape him. Here we go, he thought. Years ago, Aedan had been trying to recruit Anders for the Alliance. It’s what had gotten Anders sent into confinement for a solid year. The Grey Wardens were a group of soldiers that protected outlying colonies. But their numbers had dwindled over the years, and they had started to become not too choosy on who they recruited into their ranks. When an invasion from a hostile alien force had erupted on Thedas, Aedan had been stationed there at the time. Within a few days, all but two Wardens had been wiped out and communication cut off. Aedan had been left to struggle with little to no help. He’d done some things that the Alliance hadn’t been happy with. He’d had to unite a planet that had been warring with each other for years. Putting his fellow Warden on the throne of one of the continents had sealed the grey Warden’s fate. When everything had been said and done, the Alliance had disbanded the Wardens altogether.

Aedan hadn’t taken that in stride.

Last Anders had heard, Aedan was still on Thedas and trying to reform the Wardens without the Alliance. At the time, Anders had just been glad he hadn’t thrown in his lot with the Wardens. It had been before the Alliance had turned their back on them. If Anders had said yes, he would have been caught up in the war on Thedas, and the fallout afterwards.

Aedan Cousland was still not able to return to Alliance space. The moment he did, he was to be seized and court martialed for using his power as a Grey Warden for political gain. The Wardens had a no interference policy beyond protecting, never mind it had been the only way that Aedan had gotten the numbers he had needed to defend the planet. His face had been all over the vids for months. Aedan had become a bit infamous.

It shouldn’t have surprised Anders that Shepard and Aedan knew each other.

“Well as you can see, I’m not.” Shepard crossed his arms over his chest, unconsciously mimicking Aedan’s stance. “Mind telling me how you know Anders?”

Anders tried not to cringe when Aedan slid his eyes over to him. “Tried to get Anders to join the Grey Wardens.  I was told that he had died. Your doing, Anders, or Cerberus?”

Anders cleared his throat. “Both?” he ventured.

“Yeah… That’s what I thought.” Aedan moved his eyes back to Shepard. “Seems the dead are rising from the grave. You here to turn me in, Shepard?”

John held up his hands. “I’m not Alliance anymore. They’ll not hear about you from me. Besides, they’d have to negotiate with the Asari to get you off world.”

Aedan uncrossed his arms and spread his hands wide. “Isn’t Illium great? I’m as secure here as I am on Thedas. Even if they did know, they couldn’t touch me.”

Anders bit the inside of his cheek to keep the words in. John was either lying to Aedan or to himself. The commander was always going to be Alliance, no matter whose colors were on his ship. Even Anders could see that.

“Well,” Isabela said as she walked over to the heavily padded couch and sank into it, “that was entertaining. Shall we talk business? I hear you’re looking for a drell?”

“You’re well informed then,” Fenris said. The elf had been mostly silent since they had entered the Rose.

“Commander Shepard returns from the dead and pops a few mercs to pull a Justicar off Illium? You bet I needed to find out.” She spread her arms along the back of the couch and crossed her legs. The splits up the sides of her short, white skirt parted, revealing smooth thighs above her boots. “How much are you willing to pay for Krios’ whereabouts?”

Zevran had put Jack back on her feet and sank back on the couch next to Isabela. He furrowed his brows at her. “Krios will not take it kindly if you tell them where he is, yes? I know I wouldn’t have if someone had told another where I was during a contract.”

“Bullshit,” Isabela chided. “He knows the game. If he wanted me to keep silent, then he would have paid me for it along with what he owed for the information I gave him. He didn’t. Now unless these gentlemen are going to be silly enough to try and kill him, then I don’t see a problem, do you?”

“There  _is_  a woman with them,” Aedan pointed out, nodding at Jack.

Both Jack and Isabela exchanged a look before they burst out laughing. “What?” Isabela gasped. “Do you want me to call you, Lady?” she asked Jack. “Did I hurt your delicate sensibilities?”

Jack waved her hand as she tried to breath. “Fuck you, stop it. Jesus Christ. You call me that and I’ll never speak to you again.”

Leave it to Shepard to bring them back to the matter at hand. “Krios? We need to speak to him. We’re not here to kill him.”

Isabela wiped at the tears that had ran down her cheeks, smearing her eyeliner. The Zevran shifted on the couch and turned her face towards him, swiping at the mess with gentle fingers. “There, now you are your gorgeous self once more, no?”

“Thanks, Zev,” Isabela muttered. She cleared her throat and glanced at Shepard. “Thane Krios… I never thought you were here to kill him. Good luck to you if you were going to try. You’d never be able to do it, I don’t care how good you think you are. 50,000 credits right now and I will tell you exactly how you can find him.”


	13. Chapter 13

_Three Eclipse. Two on either side of the elevator and one in front of the doors. No mechs. All of them are carrying M-9 Tempests. Human, by the look of the build under the suits. Too bulky to be asari or salarian. Come from the left and take down one by the elevator. Snap his neck, use his body as a shield while killing the other two targets._

Thane Krios slipped around the corner on silent feet. The merc didn’t even see him coming when fingers curled around his helmet, the center two digits on each hand fused together as one. With a quick jerk Thane snapped his neck, the Eclipse mercenary dying with no more than an exhaled sigh. In one fluid movement he wrapped his forearm around the dead man’s throat, holding the body against himself in a macabre parody of a lover’s embrace. With the other, he drew his pistol and fired two shots, the remaining two mercs toppling to the ground. One of them had fired off a single shot before he had died, his fingers squeezing the trigger out of reflex, and it slammed into his dead comrade.

 

Gently, Thane set the body on the floor.  The incredibly soft leather of his clothes didn’t even as much as creak as he straightened. After holstering his pistol, he punched a button for the elevator. A monitor above the doors flashed rapid-fire numbers as the elevator ascended. He folded his hands together, closing his eyes.

_Amonkira, I thank you that my footsteps were silent and my hands quick and sure._

Down the hall the sound of gunfire reached him. Both sets of eyelids snapped open revealing ink black eyes. His full lips pulled in a small smile. They were catching up to him. Thane had made sure to leave as many mercs alive as he could while he’d made his way up the tower. He wouldn’t make it too easy for those that followed.

It had been years since Thane had felt so invigorated. What had once been a simple job, had taken on connotations that he hadn’t expected. He knew they were looking for him. He had sat and listened from a hidden spot high above when they had questioned a pair of salarians, asking if they had seen a drell.

He had doubled back when the noise had begun in the lower levels of the tower. He had wanted to know who had blasted their way through the front doors, and had obliterated the mechs that Thane had slipped by.

They hadn’t been what Thane had expected. A strange sort of thrill had raced down him, and he’d felt himself stirring with anticipation in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time.  Commander Shepard he had recognized instantly. Two years ago his face had been plastered on all the vids announcing his death.

What did a dead Spectre want with him?

He had never had to test his skills against a Spectre before. Why would he have? Spectres dealt with Council business and Thane had never, to his knowledge, taken anyone out that the Council would have sent a Spectre after him for.

Never mind the fact that Commander John Shepard was supposed to be dead.

How badly did Shepard want to find Thane? Enough to chase him all the way to Nassana? How long would it take for the Spectre to catch him?  

Thane’s curiosity had been piqued.  He’d moved away silently, and this time he occasionally killed, leaving behind corpses, a trail to lead the way. Only a few, though. The Eclipse had done nothing more than take the pay of a corrupt woman. He wasn’t here to administer death to them. He couldn’t name the urge that had him doing it, but for the first time since he had sent his wife into the sea, his son screaming in his arms, Thane Krios felt alive.

The elevator doors creaked open and Thane slipped inside the car. He stood in the middle of the elevator, the sound of gunfire coming closer along with the cries of battle. He tilted his head back and looked up. His grin grew wider and he lept up to catch the handle of a small hatch. The access hatch swing open and then Thane was gone, pulling it shut behind him. Shepard ran inside moments later, followed by Jack, Anders, and Fenris, oblivious to what they had missed.

**

“FENRIS mechs,” Jack cackled. “Oh, fuck me, that will never stop being funny. Why didn’t I ever think of that before?”

Fenris gritted his teeth as they waited for the elevator to take them to their next destination. From the moment that the damned mechs had come running out of the Dantius Tower to greet them, Jack hadn’t stopped laughing.

“Call me a good dog one more time and I’ll take your tongue.” The problem with having known Jack for so long was that his threats meant absolutely nothing to her. Even if they had just met, Fenris didn’t think she would have given one flying fuck.

The woman did not scare easily.

“Do you need another one? Is yours too tired from being in Anders’ mouth?” she shot back.

He jerked his head in Anders’ direction, his eyes full of accusation. “When did you have time to tell her about that? Can I not turn my back on either one of you for a second?”

The elevator stuttered to a halt and the lights flickered. Fenris reached out a hand behind him to support himself as he stumbled.

“He didn’t,” Jack crowed in triumph. “But you just did. Fuck, the two of you have been making eyes at each other. It was beginning to disgust me. I’m telling you right now that I’m not wearing a damned dress at your wedding.”

“Jesus…” Anders mumbled as he buried his face in his hands. “We are not having this conversation.”

“No,” Fenris agreed, “we aren’t.”  The elevator doors parted and a bullet whipped by Fenris’ head to slam into the back of the car, puncturing the metal.

Almost as easy as lifting a finger, the muscles moving with less than a thought, Fenris ignited the eezo under his skin and his form became incandescent. His sword was in his hands and he moved out the doors, a bright blur of shimmering light. Behind him, he was acutely aware of Jack following, her shotgun blasting at an Eclipse that Fenris had raced by, catching the merc full in the chest and disintegrating his shield.

It left him open for Shepard to sight down his scope and send a bullet into his brain.

Anders threw ice, spreading it in thick sheets on either side of Fenris. The four of them had been fighting together for hours now and they each knew the parts they had to play. Fenris’ eyes darted from one merc to another, looking for the telltale purple shimmer of a barrier. The barriers were strong, but very weak against physical attacks. That’s where Fenris came in, rushing forward with his sword raised, a cry on his lips.

The elevator had opened to a great bridge that swung precariously back and forth from the buffeting winds. It connected both of the Dantius Towers. Crates and bits of machinery from the construction were scattered all around the bridge, tied down against the relentless wind.  

Bodies went flying as one of Jack’s shockwaves thundered by and a merc landed in front of him with a crash. Fenris leapt over him and he heard the crackling of ice as Anders froze the downed Eclipse. The asari that Fenris was running towards, his sword swung back to strike, widened her eyes at his approach. She flung out her hand in a last ditch effort to stop him, flinging a mass effect field towards him.  Fenris felt the power skittering over his brands as it neared, but he ignored it as he reached her, his sword arcing down towards her throat. The blade slipped through the barrier as if it was as insubstantial as smoke, cleaving her head from her body.

But then he was flung through the air. He had the insane thought as he went sailing over the edge of the bridge, that the asari had looked too pleased with herself before he’d taken her head. His sword fell from his hands to go spinning end over end into the abyss.  The Dantius Towers were imposing structures, their tall spires piercing the night. Fenris couldn’t even see the ground below him, just endless nothingness. He reached out in a last ditch effort, grasping a thick cable that had come loose during the battle. The squeal of metal scraping against metal was almost lost over the roar of the wind as Fenris’ claw tipped gauntlet caught at the cable and he gripped tight.  His rapid descent jerked to a halt and pain slammed into his shoulder as it took the brunt of his weight. He cried out in pain while his other hand reached above him, grasping the cable.

“…enris!”

Fenris looked up with pain wracked eyes to see Anders leaning over the edge of the bridge on his front, his hand held out, reaching for him. The scientist’s eyes were wide with fear, and Fenris could barely make out Anders’ words as his lips moved.

“..elp you…”

A sudden gust of wind had Fenris slamming into the side of the bridge, and he almost lost his grip on the cable as a fresh wave of pain slid down his body. Gritting his teeth, Fenris forced himself to move. Inch by agonizing inch, he hauled himself up the cable, digging his claws into the groves in the metal. The damned armor that he was just beginning to see the usefulness of, protected him each time the wind sent him spinning like bait on a hook.

It did nothing as each jolt sent more pain through his shoulder.

Finally he was close to Anders. Without giving it second thought, Fenris reached for him, their fingertips bypassing each other as Fenris swayed. Their hands caught and Anders held out his other hand.

“Give me the other one!” Anders shouted. Fenris could hear him now. “Shepard and Jack have my legs.”

Their eyes locked and Fenris let go of the cable. There was a brief moment when he was dangled in midair, held up by only Anders’ tight hold on his hand. He could feel his claws puncture Anders’ gauntlet, and his shoulder screamed in pain. His free hand flailed and Anders’ caught him by the wrist.

“Got him!” Anders cried.

Fenris was hauled upwards. Several pairs of hands lifted him up when he reached the edge of the bridge, and he collapsed when his feet hit solid ground.

“Mother fuck!” Jack shouted. “Don’t do that shit again!” She glared at him as if Fenris could have prevented what had happened, and had done it solely to annoy her. She turned her back on him and stomped off down the bridge.

Anders had his omni-tool open and he waved it slowly over Fenris’ body as he kneeled next to him. The elf couldn’t help but notice that Anders was shaking, the orange glow of the omni-tool wavering.

“You’ve torn some tendons. You’re lucky you didn’t dislocate your shoulder or break something.”  With a few touches to his onimi-tool, Anders injected medigel into Fenris’ suit using one of the miniscule medical ports. The pain dulled instantly and Fenris breathed out a sigh of relief.

“We’ve cleared out the bridge, but I think they have some turrets at the other side,” Shepard told him. “You’re to stay behind us and use your pistol if the recoil isn’t too much.”

Fenris narrowed his eyes. “I’ll be fine.”

“Make sure that you are.” With one last look, Shepard turned and raced after Jack.

“What the hell is wrong with him?” Anders muttered. “He’s been an ass lately.”

Fenris knew, but it wasn’t his place to tell. John had told him something that no one else knew, he had trusted Fenris with his secrets, and Fenris meant to show him that it hadn’t been misplaced.

“He’s been abrupt, but he hasn’t been making mistakes,” Fenris pointed out. His heart had finally slowed down, and the adrenaline that had brought him close enough to Anders to catch a hold of his hands left him in a rush. “Come on, we have to keep moving.”

He moved to get to his feet, but Anders placed a gentle hand on his cheek. The scientist’s eyes searched his, warm brown and full of concern that Fenris still wasn’t used to seeing sent his way. 

“Fuck, you scared me. I thought I’d lost you.” Anders leaned close and placed a soft kiss on Fenris’ lips.

Fenris closed his eyes and inhaled the scent of fire and ice. “You won’t get rid of me that easily.” The words slipped easily from Fenris’ lips and into the kiss. He found that he meant it. When he’d been climbing towards Anders, it hadn’t been just because he hadn’t wanted to die, but because he actually had something to live for. This silent thing that had been building between them from the first moment they had met.

He felt Anders’ lips quirk into a smile. “That a promise?”

“Maybe…” Fenris opened his eyes and glanced down when the kiss broke. His eyes narrowed when he saw Anders’ hand. “You’re injured.”

Anders followed his line of sight. Flexing his hand, he turned it under the bright lights of the bridge. Holes had been gouged into the flexible metal of Anders’ gauntlet. “It looks worse than it is, I promise.”  He flicked his eyes up and grinned. “Kiss it better?”

Fenris rolled his eyes and climbed to his feet. “Let’s go before Jack decides to bring the bridge down.”

**

Not only had there been turrets, but there had been several more Eclipse at the end of the bridge. By the time they had forced their way into the building and into Nassana’s office, the four of them were exhausted. Shepard’s armor had been damaged, large pockmarks dotted the metal. Jack had a long cut on her right side from where a bullet had grazed her. Fenris’ arm was screaming in pain despite the medigel, and Anders hand had been wounded worse than he had initially thought. Blood had leaked out from the gauntlet and he had torn it off in frustration, leaving it abandoned a few rooms back.

The fighting, the death, the pain, the chaos, and Thane Krios was nowhere to be seen.  Fenris was beginning to wonder if Isabela had steered them wrong. For the amount money they had paid her, she had better hope that she hadn’t double crossed them.  Fenris didn’t care what kind of friendship that Jack and her had. Shepard had been convinced all this while that they were right on Krios’ trail. But the trail had ended here and Nassana was still alive.

In fact, she wouldn’t shut the hell up.

The asari was actually trying to justify herself to Shepard. If Fenris wasn’t hearing it with his own ears, he wouldn’t have believed that someone could be so stupid. One only had to look at the tightening around Shepard’s eyes and the way his lips thinned to see that he wasn’t buying what the asari was trying to sell.

Her office was dark expect for the rising sun behind her, spilling hues of orange and red through the slats of the blinds. As she railed at Shepard—was she really trying to buy him off?—Fenris almost missed the figure that dropped behind one of her guards from an air duct. Within seconds, all of Nassana’s guards were dead. A heartbeat after that, Nassana was laid across the massive command console, the life winking out of her eyes. It had all happened so quickly, that Fenris still wasn’t sure exactly how it had transpired. One moment the figure had appeared, and then the next Nassana was dead, killed in a blur of fluid darkness. Fenris could see why people paid for precision like that. Not a single action had been wasted.

Thane Krios folded his hands together and bowed his head as he stood over Nassana’s corpse.

“Now that’s what I call an entrance,” Jack whistled.


	14. Chapter 14

The moment that the door closed behind them with a soft whoosh of displaced air, Anders found himself backed up to his bed as his armor was popped off one section at a time to land discarded on the smooth floor.

To be fair, his hands were just as busy, pulling at Fenris’ armor and clothes until the room was a symphony of crashes and harsh breathing.

 

Anders broke the kiss and groaned when Fenris chased his mouth, the elf biting at his bottom lip and releasing after pulling at the kiss swollen flesh. “Who’s on to—“ Anders yelped when Fenris’ bare hands slid through his hair and dislodged his hair tie, causing some of the blonde strands to fall around his face, while Fenris gathered the bulk of it up and yanked Anders’ head back.

“Who do you think, Mage?” Fenris mouthed over Anders’ throat, his teeth nipping at his skin.

Anders groaned a mixture of exasperation and pleasure. “Damn Jack for getting into my Cerberus dossier. Don’t call me that.”

“What do you want me to call you then?” Fenris whispered in Anders’ ear, his warm breath sending pleasant shivers over his skin. “Mine? My piece of ass.” He dropped a hand to Anders’ bare backside and gave it a rough squeeze. “My cock.” Anders panted through parted lips as Fenris slid his hand around his waist and ran a finger down his prominent erection. He placed two fingers, slick with Anders’ own precum against his lips, pressing inside his mouth. “My mouth,” Fenris growled and his eyes heated as he watched Anders lick his fingers clean.

God, Anders had never been so turned on in his life. He had hoped that this was what was going to happen when they had left Illium, Thane Krios in tow. It was as if once Fenris had made up his mind that he and Anders were going to do this, he held nothing back. He had followed Anders to the lab, and the human had tried his damnedest to not assume that it had meant anything.

That had been before Fenris had hooked his fingers into the collar of Anders’ armor and hauled him close, crushing their lips together before the door to Anders’ room had even opened.

“Let me suck your cock,” Anders pleaded around Fenris’ thrusting fingers. He placed the flat of his tongue against the tips of the elf’s fingers, giving him a little preview. He could feel Fenris’ erection against his own as hard flesh bumped along each other with each shudder and twitch. “I could take it all down. I’m good at it.”

Fenris’ eyes closed as if he could already feel it. “Prove it,” he rasped.

Anders didn’t need Fenris’ guiding grip on his hair to sink to his knees. He went gladly, landing on the smooth floor. He flicked his eyes up, looking at Fenris through blonde lashes. “I want to touch you,” he whispered. Something was going on between them, something as yet unnamed—Anders asking for permission, Fenris telling him that he belonged to the elf.

Anders wasn’t going to do anything to stop what was building between them now.

He didn’t even hesitate. “Please, Sir.”

He was gratified to see the way Fenris’ nostrils flared as he sucked in a slow, shaky breath. “Yes,” the elf growled.  

Anders flashed Fenris a quick smile before turning his head and placing a kiss at the juncture between Fenris’ groin and hip. His lips found one of Fenris’ brands and his tongue followed the swooping trail to the hairless base of the elf’s cock. Fenris remained still, but Anders could feel the way his fingers had tightened in his hair, and hear how the elf’s breathing had hitched.

Anders nuzzled at Fenris’ sac with his nose as his hands caressed up the elf’s body. He smoothed his hands up Fenris’ sides, taking care to not scratch at the eezo just under his skin. The brands were a little bit more pliable now. They had just that much more feeling to them, but they could still hurt. He traced the edges of lithe muscles, and spread his fingers over dark nipples, feeling them peek under his thumbs.

“You’re so incredibly beautiful,” Anders breathed. He turned his head and licked a long stripe along the underside of Fenris’ bobbing erection before engulf the whole thing in one, swift movement.

**

_You’re so beautiful…_

Fenris fought against the panic in his mind at those words. If Anders hadn’t chosen that precise moment to finally take him in his mouth, Fenris wasn’t sure what he would have done. Danarius had always liked to remind Fenris how beautiful he’d found him, how the markings he had given the elf had only enhanced that beauty, and Fenris should have been grateful for it.

 _Show me how grateful you are_ , Danarius would tell him.  _Show your appreciation to your creator in how he’s shaped you._

Danarius had even made a special point to not brand Fenris’ cock and balls, choosing to spare them if something should go wrong.

After all, if Fenris had become crazed from the eezo poisoning, he would at least have been good for something.

Fenris could feel the rising panic as the memories surfaced. He jerked his eyes down, forcing his gaze on blonde hair and warm brown eyes. He watched the way his cock shuttled in and out of Anders’ lips— _Anders_ , not Danarius.

Why was this happening now? Fenris had never had a problem with fucking someone since he and Jack had escaped. He wanted to say it was because Anders had once been Cerberus, that he had seen the human poke and prod at Jack, the same way he had examined Fenris and countless others on the ship. But even as he thought it, he knew that wasn’t why.

He’d had no emotional connection with the others he had slept with. Not the way he had with Anders. The thought momentarily robbed him of air, and his breath stuttered in his lungs. 

That thought, the very realization that he was a little bit in love with Anders, gave him what he needed to take back control over his own body, his own feelings, to be in the here and now. Danarius would not take this from him. Fenris had stopped giving pieces of himself to his tormentor long ago.

Anders had proved in words and deeds that he was a good man under the quips and cocky grins. In truth, Fenris actually liked those smiles, and Anders’ attempts to add levity to otherwise dark times. It  had seemed so foolish at first, until Fenris had realized that Anders did it to not only disavow his own fear and pain, but to help those around him as well.

Fenris lightly ran his fingers through Anders’ hair, gentling his grip. When had this happened? Fenris couldn’t pinpoint it the moment when Anders had laughed and joked his way into Fenris’ life. The scientist’s dogged insistence on helping Fenris had to have been the start of it.

Their eyes met and Fenris was disarmed. Anders reached up and placed his hand on top of the one Fenris had on his head, squeezing on the elf’s fingers. Fenris felt his lips curve into a small smile and retightened his grip in the blonde strands.

Twisting his head, Anders deliberately pulled against Fenris’ grasp, and the elf was forced to dig his nails into Anders’ scalp. Anders’ eyes fluttered almost shut and he moaned around the cock in his mouth. Time and time again he bumped his nose against Fenris’ pelvis, taking the elf down to the root before pulling back to sweeping his tongue over the head. Fenris could feel his balls begin to draw up, his erection becoming almost impossibly hard under Anders’ ministrations.

Anders hadn’t lied. He was good at this.

But it was more than any skill that Anders had, Fenris knew that now. He had never been with someone who he’d…

Fenris’ stomach muscles contracted, and he knew he was close. He pulled on Anders’ hair. “Stop. Not yet, not like this.”

Anders gave the head of Fenris’ cock one last reverent kiss on the tip before he complied and sat back on his heels, his hands resting lightly on Fenris’ hips. “Not like this?” Anders asked coyly. “Then how do you want it?”

 _So many ways_ , Fenris immediately thought.  _You have no idea._  The panic was back, but this time it had nothing to do with memories that threatened to tear down Fenris. He had never felt this way for anyone before. What was he supposed to do? With each new person that Shepard amassed, they got that much closer to being ready to go through the Omega Four Relay. What if Anders didn’t feel the same? What if he cared for Fenris, but didn’t love him.

What if he found out the extent of what Danarius had done to him?

Rationally, Fenris knew that Anders would not turn from him in disgust, but his heart and years of Danarius slowly chipping away at Fenris’ psyche told him otherwise. A sudden urge came over Fenris to bind Anders to him in the only way he knew how.

He wanted this for himself.

Fenris nodded behind Anders towards the bed. “Get on your back and spread your legs. I want you to show me how much you want it.”

Anders complied by rolling over on his hands and knees, his back to the elf. His hair hung like a curtain on either side of his face, and he glanced through it over his shoulder, giving Fenris a heated look. His back moved in a sinuous line when he placed his palms on the bed and crawled on top of the mattress, his ass swaying with each movement. Fenris stared at it, mesmerized at the way he could see glimpses of Anders’ erection between his legs.  Anders crawled across the bed and didn’t stop until he reached the headboard. Reaching to his left, he yanked open the drawer of his bedside table and pulled out a small bottle.  He rolled over on his back, settling himself against the pillows and sheets before spreading his thighs wide and bringing his knees up, exposing his cock, balls, and asshole.

Hooking his arms behind his knees, he pulled his legs back further, raising his ass higher. He looked at Fenris standing at the foot of the bed, Anders’ eyes heavy lidded. Popping the lid of the bottle, their eyes locked as Anders poured the slick lubricant over his cock, letting it slide down the shaft to coat his balls, dripping over his asshole.

“Look how wet I am for you,” Anders all but purred. “I’m dripping with it.”

Fenris felt his mouth go dry at the sight. “Did sucking my cock get you so wet? What a slut you are.”

“Mm…” Anders hummed in agreement. He pushed the cap back on the bottle, dropped it back ont he bed, and reached between his legs to smooth his hand over his slick shaft, rubbing the lube over his balls until the hair was flattened and they glistened in the bright, overhead light. He pushed a single finger into his own ass, eased by the copious amount of lubricant. Fenris watched with avid eyes as Anders’ middle finger disappeared over and over again, sinking into his backside. Anders panted and added a second fingers, stretching his hole.

“This is how much I want it,” Anders groaned. “Do you think this is the first time I have doen this to myself as I imagined you were with me, in me?”

Fenris knew that words were coming out of their mouths that neither of them had ever spoken to another person before. There was a charge in the air, a knowledge that went unsaid that the two of them could say and do anything with each other without judgment.

Fenris moved before he knew that he had even placed a hand on the bed, crawling over Anders. He crushed their lips together, taking Anders’ mouth in a searing kiss as he pulled the other man’s hands away. Bracing his arms on either side of Anders’ head, he dragged his cock against the his entrance, probing slightly.

“You want the real thing?” Fenris asked between biting kisses.

“Yes…” Anders moaned, his breath hot.

“Yes, what?” Fenris demanded.

Anders practically shook from need and the snap of command in Fenris’ voice. “Yes, Sir. Give me your cock. Fuck me, please!” The last was said on a shout, a needy sound ripped from his lungs.

“Good boy,” Fenris purred. He took Anders’ glistening hand in his own and swiped it over his cock. “Hold your legs up high and spread that ass for me.”

Anders scrambled to yank his legs back, his breath seesawing between parted lips. Fenris leaned down and kissed the still vivid scar on Anders’ shoulder as he began to push steadily into him, working Anders open.

When he was finally seated to the hilt, Fenris stilled inside the human. Anders had his head thrown back, arching his neck, his legs gripped tightly in his hands.  In this moment, Anders was the beautiful one.

“You’re beautiful,” Fenris told him, the words coming unbidden to his lips. He knew that this is what Anders had met when he’d said those same words to Fenris. The intent behind words changed their very meaning. Danarius had used the words to mark, to reduce Fenris to an object of his creation. Anders had said it, because in that moment he had meant more than what was on the surface.

In much the same way that Fenris meant them.

It would never erase what Danarius had done to Fenris, but it was a small taking back of something that should have been simple, but instead had become tainted.

Anders dropped his head back down to look at Fenris through blonde lashes. “I—Oh, fuck!”

Fenris withdrew and without any preamble, slammed back into the man under him. He’d angled his hips just right, and was gratified when Anders had cried out. His cock shuttled in and out of Anders, his hips smacking harder and harder against the other man, taking him roughly. Anders’ hands slapped behind him to the headboard, stopping his slide across the bed, and smearing lubricant over the cool metal. The pillow under him bunched up, forcing his upper back to arch off to one side.

Fenris hooked Anders’ legs over his shoulders, and he turned his head to the side to lightly bite at the thick muscle of Anders’ calf. His still wounded shoulder was half forgotten in the haze of lust. Fenris knew that he was going to be in a lot of pain by the time they were done, and his body recalled that it hadn’t been ready to be worked like that.

But none of that mattered when each thrust elicited a cry of pleasure from Anders’ lips, drawing them both closer and closer to climax. Fenris didn’t think he would ever get tired of hearing Anders  call out his name in a litany, the small pleas for more, the moans of elation when Fenris gave it to him. He would never get tired of Seeing Anders like this, his face slack in his abandon, his eyes almost closed in bliss, a red flush spreading up his chest and throat, staining his fair skin.

Fenris knew then that he wasn’t just a little bit in love with Anders. He was  _completely_  in love with him, and damn anyone who would part them.

This new understanding made his strokes surer, wringing every ounce of pleasure he could out of Anders. If Anders only wanted this one time, then Fenris was going to make sure that it was the best damned time that the other man ever had.

Anders’ body writhed under him, his toes curling in on themselves as his thighs began to shake.

“Are you going to come, Anders?” Fenris panted. Sweat dotted both of their bodies, filling the room with the scent of sex and musk. “Can you come without me touching you?”

“I can’t!” Anders cried. “Fuck… I need to… I need to…”

Fenris took Anders’ earring between his teeth, tugging it lightly. “Beg me for it.”

Anders didn’t need any more prompting. The words poured from his mouth, tripping over his tongue in his haste. “Please let me come, Sir. I—Fuck!—need to come. Please, please, please, please.”

“See,” Fenris cooed. “That wasn’t so hard.”

He slipped a hand between them and took Anders’ cock in a sure grip. It took only two strokes before Anders’ back arched and his lips parted, a strangled sound erupting from his mouth as he came.

Fenris wasn’t too far behind, the feeling of Anders’ semen splattering over both of their stomachs, watching how Anders completely gave into his climax, ushered in his own. His body strained, the muscles in his arms shaking as his cock jerked, emptying itself into Anders. Anders reared his head up and took Fenris’ lips into a sloppy kiss as the elf rode out his orgasm, the blonde’s hands smoothing over Fenris’ taut shoulders while the elf groaned.

Fenris barely had the presence of mind to collapse to the side, his spent cock slipping out of Anders. The two men stared at each other as they panted for breath.

“Please tell me we’re going to be doing this again, and often,” Anders’ croaked.

Fenris knew his smile must have startled Anders by the slight widening of the other man’s eyes, but at this moment, in this bed, with this man, Fenris was too content to care about pretense. “We will be doing this again,” he assured Anders. “And often.”


	15. Chapter 15

Chakwas’ recriminations rang in Shepard’s ears as he left medical. Fuck, she hadn’t given him a talking to like that in a long time-- if ever. John knew he looked like shit. His eyes were bloodshot his skin had taken on a greyish cast. The ever present shadow on his jaw now threatened to become a softer beard.

She was not happy with him for pushing himself.

She also hadn’t bought his bullshit excuse about seeing how far he could take his new body.

Four days without sleep. He’d done it before, but never without being in an all-out combat situation. You had to learn how to push the limits of your endurance when you were in N7 training, and then push some more. Those that couldn’t hack it were quickly booted out. N7s were the best of the best, and John had done everything that had been asked of him and then some.

But this was different. He couldn’t tell her that sleep wouldn’t have brought the much needed rest his mind needed. It was in his dreams that he relived his death in horrifying detail, where he gasped out his last breath screaming as his body burned.

He had died. He knew he had died. But he walked, talked, felt emotions. There were days when John looked into a mirror and he felt like a ghost was staring back at him with dead eyes.

He didn’t blame Kaidan for wanting nothing to do with him. John wasn’t sure who or what he was anymore.

He wished he had Miranda’s self-confidence. She had been engineered as well, put together in a sterile lab and brought to life. They were commodities to their creators, things that had been built for a single purpose not of their own making. John knew, deep down where he kept things that he rarely liked to face, that resist all he wanted to, he was doing exactly as the Illusive Man wanted. The face of Cerberus had John by the balls, and they were both acutely aware of it.

John let out a slow breath. He needed to man up and go to the Citadel. He had put it off for long enough, fear keeping his lips sealed against the order.  But just like his hesitating in contacting Kaidan or his mother, John wasn’t ready to see Anderson.

He was beginning to think he would never be ready.

There were going to be some hard questions that John didn’t really have the answers to. John had wanted to be a soldier ever since he could remember, following his parents from one station to the next. It was in his blood, he was good at it. What was he now? Lately he had begun to feel like he was going through the motions, muscle memory of what John Shepard had been . The dreams of his death tore apart everything he thought he knew of himself. John had never been afraid to die, but now that he had, he no longer knew how to live.

Laughter ripped him from his reverie. And he sucked in a fortifying breath. Garrus, Jack, Zaeed, and Anders sat at one of the tables in the mess. Those tables had become the go to meeting spot for the eclectic group he was gathering.

A slow smile spread over John’s lips. The Reaper, the Collectors, and even the Illusive Man could never take this from him. He watched as Anders gestured wildly in the middle of telling his story, Garrus and Jack with identical looks of disbelief, and Zaeed interjecting with his own comments.

The Reapers wanted moments like this to end, and the Illusive Man would never understand them at all. The crew of the Normandy weren’t commodities, the ship had never been ran that way. John had never just taken pride in his ship because it was a state of the art craft, but because of the people on it.

People that relied on him to do his damned job.

John scrubbed at his face. Damn it. He was lucky he hadn’t made a costly mistake. The nightmares, his hurt over Kaidan. He had to get his shit together. He couldn’t blame Kaidan for being angry with him. Fuck, it still hurt, but it wasn’t Kaidan’s fault. John knew that logically, he would have reacted the same way. A friend long thought dead shows up on a Cerberus ship and says that he had died, but Cerberus had rebuilt him?

He let out a soft groan. Jesus, maybe it was time to talk to Garrus and lay everything out on the table. John just wasn’t sure where to start, but he couldn’t keep it all inside anymore. It was eating at him, a black hole that grew and grew until John wasn’t sure if he could even feel anymore.

Mind made up, he took a step towards the table. “Garrus,” he called, getting the turian’s attention, “can I talk to you for a moment?”

**

Zaeed had left Anders and Jack to their own devices after Garrus and an admittedly horrible looking Shepard had walked to the elevators.

“He’s losing it,” Jack murmured.

Anders raised an eyebrow. “Who? Shepard?”

“No, the fucking Primarch of the Turians. Of course fucking Shepard.” She rolled her eyes. “He’s a goddamn mess. He needs to get his shit together, or we’re not going to survive the relay.”

Anders chewed on his bottom lip, his eyes straying to where Shepard and Garrus had turned the corner for the elevator. “Yeah… That’s a cheery thought.”

“Wasn’t meant to be.” Jack reached over and snagged a chip from the half-filled bowel between them.  “So, you and Fenris banging on the regular now? I know he moved into your room the other day.”

Anders choked on a mouthful of greasy chip and Jack slapped her hand on his back while he fought for air. “He had to. Shepard gave his room to Samara. Fenris wasn’t too happy about that.”

“No shit,” Jack agreed. “He came storming into my place, ranting about personal space and how Shepard was an ass for trying to make him share. Funny as hell that he then turns right around and moves in with you.” She scooted around in her chair and looked at him with wide eyes, as if what she was about to say next was so important, that she didn’t want him to miss a single word. “So tell me, which one of you is the bottom?” She tilted her head to the side. “You’re taller than him, but that don’t mean shit. I would be willing to bet that you’re the one to take a pounding.”

This time, Anders knew enough to not have a mouthful of food when she asked her question. He stared at her with a mixture of horror and admiration. “You’re frightening, but I think I love you anyway,” he said in awe.

She flashed him a grin. “Thanks. You do say the sweetest things. I can see why Fen likes you so much.”

Anders glanced away and fiddled with the bowl, spinning it on the smooth, metal tabletop. “I’m not so sure about that.” For the past week the two of them had fucked every chance they got.  In Anders’ bed, against the wall, on the floor, and even once in the public showers, Fenris’ hand over Anders’ mouth, muffling his cries of pleasure. He knew Fenris liked being in his body, but the elf wouldn’t talk to him about anything more, even if Anders had had the guts to bring it up.

Jack rolled her eyes again. “Aw shit… Don’t fucking pull this maudlin crap on me. We’re heading to what might be a pretty fucking messy death. Who the fuck cares about this teenage bullshit? You two are fucking, right?”

Anders slowly nodded.

“Then fucking man up. Fen doesn’t like to talk about shit if he can help it. Either ask him, or shut up and enjoy the reaming he gives you. And for the record, if I’m the one giving any sort of relationship advice, you’re pretty much fucked in the first place.”

Anders snorted in laughter. “Point taken.”

Jack grinned. “Fuck yeah, point taken. God damn it, when did I even start giving out advice at all? This shit is Shepard’s fault. I should’ve torn a hole in the hull of the prison ship the moment I laid eyes on him, and saved us all a fuck load of trouble.”

“But then you wouldn’t have met me,” Anders pouted. “I’m awesome. Everyone should meet me at least once. People’s lives are much improved after they’ve met me.”

“If that’s the case then I am glad to have done so,” came a voice from behind him.

Anders’ head whipped around while Jack cackled, to see Thane Krios standing behind him, a steaming mug in his hand. The drell gave him a bland smile and took a slow sip. “Pardon if I’m intruding.”

“Uh…” Anders stammered.

“You’re not fucking intruding.” Jack said. “And I wouldn’t say that people’s lives improve when they meet Anders. More like they learn a fucking tolerance to hearing the sound of constant babbling.”

“Hey!” Anders protested.

Jack gave Anders a sly grin. “I bet Fen knows how to shut you up. All you need is a nice big co—“

Anders’ eyes went wide and he slapped his palms down on the table to cut her off, rattling the bowl. “Jesus. You’re in seriously fine form today.”

“That’s because I’m going stir crazy. I wake up and look at the same fucking people every day. I thought we were going to be able to get off ship and wander around Illium for a few days. But nope. Get the asari and the drell and we’re off again.  So if you wanna to blame anyone, blame Shepard.” She arched an eyebrow at Anders. “Or maybe a certain scientist who cut off my supply of sand. That shit used to mellow me out just fine.”

Anders inwardly cringed. He had to give her that one. Although she had come through the withdrawals weeks ago, Jack’s temper was shorter than it used to be, and it’d been pretty short to begin with. Still, he couldn’t be sorry for it, and he was a bit proud of her for seeing things through.

“How’s the amp holding up?” he asked her in a bid to change the subject. Krios sat down across from them, his mug held between his hands.

Jack blew out a breath. “Fine. My biotics have a little bit more kick to them now. What the hell did you do anyway?”

“Do you really want to know?” Anders asked.

“Nah.” Jack laughed. “You’d just put me to sleep.”

“I wouldn’t mind knowing,” Thane said softly. He blew on his drink and took another sip. “I watched you both fight on Illium. I’m curious.”

Anders launched into an explanation that he would have once given to one of his newer assistants. Mordin understood Anders when he spoke of his work, but it was rare that anyone else wanted him to talk about it. When Anders had destroyed Calenhad and his research, he had also destroyed any chance to seriously speak of what he had spent years of his life on.

His explanation stuttered to a halt at the thought. What was he going to do if he _did_ survive the relay? Being on the Normandy had given Anders a purpose besides running. He liked being in a lab again, doing what he did best. He would be damned if he worked for Cerberus again, but who else would ever take him after the things he had done?

“Aw fuck. I’m out.” Jack stood up and dusted off her hands.

“Wait… What?” Anders watched her walk to the elevator.

“Maudlin!” Jack threw over her shoulder in a singsong voice. “You got that look on your face again.”

“Do you even know what maudlin means?” Anders shouted after her. Her cackling laughter was his only response.

“You seem to be good friends.” Thane took a drink and set the mug down gently.

“Who? Jack?” Anders asked incredulously. “If by good friends you mean she likes to pick on me, then yes. We’re totally the best of friends.”

“I did not expect that when I agreed to come on this ship.”

“What did you expect?” Anders asked.

“A Cerberus ship ran by Commander Shepard come back from the dead? Many things. It’s not as… strict as I thought it would be,” Thane replied.

Anders choked on a laugh. “Wait until Shepard gives you ‘the talk’.” He actually made air quotes and he wasn’t sorry for it.

“The talk?” Thane raised an eyebrow ridge in amusement. “Would this be when he comes to see me and asks me how I’m acclimating?”

“Oh, no,” Anders shook his head. “That was just the pre-talk. The real deal comes later, when you find yourself opening up to him. The man has a weird way of getting people to trust him. Most of the people here wouldn’t be caught dead within ten feet of each other.” He shrugged. “But here we are, going on a suicide mission likes it’s the best idea we’ve ever heard.”

“Loyalty will inspire that in people,” Thane pointed out. “A common goal under a strong leader.”

Anders snorted. “Or the call of credits.”

“Maybe,” Thane mused. “But credits will only ever get someone so far. You can buy a man like myself to kill for you, you can buy his discretion, but you can never buy the kind of loyalty and trust it would take to pull off something like going through the Omega Four Relay. Why do you think Cerberus brought Shepard back form the dead and spent the money and time to do it? It was because Shepard is one of those rare men that could gather the group he has, and hold them together. No one else would have done.”

Anders sank back in his chair, the smile falling from his face. “How do you know all this?”

Thane tilted his head to the side and gave Anders a small smile. “I listen. I also made sure to do some research on my own before I stepped foot on this ship. I do not care about my own inevitable death, but I did not wish to be a part of something that was not what it seemed.

“Jack, Fenris, Massani. They’re dangerous people. There is a Justicar on the ship, and two scientists that had built a small reputation for having the gangs of Omega running scared. Miranda Lawson, the Illusive Man’s right hand. Do I need to go on?”

Anders slowly shook his head. “No,” he whispered. He could see now why Krios was notorious as an assassin. It wasn’t just the lethality he had displayed in the Towers. The drell was a good assassin because he knew how to read people, gather and process information.

“Commander John Shepard was chosen because only he could have brought all of us together. You say he’s good at getting people to open up? I say that was the whole point.”

Thane idly moved his mug back and forth between hands that Anders had watched snap a merc’s neck like it was cardboard.  It was so easy for Anders to forget just what kind of people were on the ship. Even _his_ hands weren’t clean. Thane Krios had a way of getting straight to the point and putting things in perspective.

A grin curved Anders lips. “Shepard is going to get more than he bargained for in his talk with you, isn’t he?”

Thane took a deliberate, loud sip of his drink. “Perhaps. I feel that exchanges like the one you say he is going to be looking for, must work as just that—an exchange.”


	16. Chapter 16

“What the fuck are they doing?” Jack asked.

Jack, Zaeed, Grunt, and Fenris all looked down with varying degrees of curiosity, horror, and approval. They had crowded in front of the large windows in engineering that looked over the shuttle bay when Jack had first noticed the gathering of the crew.

Shepard had most of the crew lined up and he was pacing back and forth in front of them, his hands occasionally gesturing to punctuate some point. A large space had been cleared in the center of the shuttle bay and Shepard strode over to the center of it. On either side of him, crates had been stacked in a seemingly haphazard fashion.

The crew split up into two groups and went to opposite sides of the shuttle bay, ducking behind the crates. Fenris watched incredulously as he spotted more than a few draw weapons.

“Aw, shit,” Jack murmured, “he’s making them fight. This oughta be good.”

“I would lay credits down that it was the turian’s idea,” Zaeed stated. “Crews on turian ships get itchy for a fight if they’ve been without battle for too long. They set up tournaments to settle disagreements and to release tension. Crafty buggers. Know how to keep their people in line.”

“Turians don’t know shit about how to keep people in line,” Grunt announced. “The only way to prove you’re the one in the right is to tear off someone’s arms, beat them to death with them, and then use their skull for a toilet.”

Three pairs of eyes slowly turned to stare at the young krogan. “That’s very specific,” Fenris said carefully.

“I have a lot of time to think down here.” Grunt shrugged his massive shoulders. “I thought it would be fun to rank each member of the crew according to how much fun it would be to kill them. Some of you wouldn’t offer any challenge at all.”

“Yeah?” Jack gave Grunt a speculative look.

“Don’t ask,” Fenris warned. He dropped his head in his hands when she did anyway. He should have known better.

“Where I land on that list?”

Grunt laughed, a low chuckle that was little more than a harsh breath. “Fourth.”

“Fourth?” Jack placed her hands on her hips. “What the fuck? I’m the most dangerous bitch around here. I’m wanted in almost every system. Who the fuck is ranked higher than me?”

Fenris sighed and lowered his hands, turning once more to the window. The two groups were engaged in a fierce firefight. He noticed that the pistols that they had drawn weren’t doing anything more than giving a light stun. When a person got ‘shot’ they moved off to the side to join their fallen comrades to watch the fight.

They had a few days left until they made it to the Citadel. Shepard had announced the other day that they were going to be docking for a week. No missions. Anders had told Fenris that Shepard had gone off to have a long talk with Garrus. Whatever the turian had said to him must have sunken in. A thought occurred to Fenris and he glanced up sharply at the others. They were in a deep, heated debate, Jack and Grunt arguing on who would become the eventual victor if the two of them fought, and Zaeed interjecting every so often in rambling stories of battles he had been involved in that gave weight to both Grunt and Jack’s points.

“You do realize that Shepard is going to want us to fight in a mock battle as well, correct?” Fenris’ lips twitched as he fought a small smile when the other three stopped in mid-argument.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” Jack crowed. “Fuck yes!” She whirled around on Grunt and poked him in his armored chest. “Hundred credits says I kick your krogan ass.”

“Double it and you’re on,” Grunt countered. “I’ve got my eye on a new shotgun.”

Zaeed shook his head. “You’re thinking too small. We’ve got a fucking Justicar and Thane Krios on the ship. 500 credits to the person that can take them both down.”

“You’re still thinking too small.” The smile finally broke free on Fenris’ lips, but it was less than friendly.  “You’re underestimating Mordin and Anders, not to mention Garrus and myself. Plus, you’re forgetting the true danger on the ship.”

“Shepard,” the other three intoned at the same time.

“If he wants us to play his little games, then he needs to join in. A thousand credits to whoever is the last one standing, agreed?” Fenris looked from one person to the other.

Jack slammed her fist into her palm. “Now that’s a fucking bet.”

**

Anders stared at Shepard. “You want us to what now?”

“Fight each other,” Shepard repeated. “But not,” he gave a few of them pointed looks, “to the death. Maiming is out as well. It was pointed out to me that this crew needs to let off some steam that doesn’t include a mission. Fight on your own, or split off into teams. It’s your choice.”

Anders widened his eyes comically. “Oh? Is that all? Well then… You know, I didn’t think you were actually going to ask us to do this.”

They were a day out from the nearest relay that would take them straight to the Citadel. Shepard had promised them a week of shore leave and Anders meant to make the most of every minute of it.  He glanced at Fenris out of the corner of his eyes. Anders had some credits saved up and he was planning on making sure Fenris’ first time at the Citadel was a memorable one. He felt some trepidation about what amounted to a date. He and Fenris weren’t really a ‘date’ type of couple. Not with the lives they had led and the Omega Four Relay looming over them. But Anders wanted a small taste of normalcy, even if it was just having lunch at his favorite café on the Presidium with someone he cared a great deal for.

He just hadn’t told Fenris about it yet.

Shepard had gathered everyone in the shuttle bay and had proceeded to tell them exactly what they were going to be doing and the rules. Anders eyed the others. Rules…  Not with this group. Fenris had informed him about the little bet he had going on with the others. With a thousand credits on the line, the rules were going to get bent, then broken pretty quickly, obliterated by gunfire, biotics, and the inevitable explosions.

He scooted closer to Fenris. All right, Andes had to admit that he was itching to get his hands on the money too. He and Fenris had already come to the conclusion it would be best if they teamed up. If they were the last two standing, Anders was going to bow out and let Fenris take the credits and the win. How hard could it be? They just had to get through a krogan, a merc who survived being shot in the fucking head, a convict who had rampaged through the prison ship she had been confined in, a turian who had had three of the biggest merc groups on Omega banding together to kill him, a Justicar, an assassin, a former STG agent, two Cerberus agents, one of whom was the Illusive Man’s right hand, and last, but definitely not least, Commander Shepard, the Savior of the Citadel.

Yeah…

Anders popped the heat sink into his pistol and checked to make sure that it was set to nonlethal rounds. Next to him, Fenris had drawn his sword. It was an exact copy of the one he had lost on Illium. Jacob had commissioned quite a few in case they were needed.

As Shepard began to wind down, Fenris spoke out of the corner of his mouth. “Start backing up, Anders. We make for the crates directly behind you.”

Anders did as he was told, sliding back slowly. Their plan was simple. Protect themselves and let some of their more hotheaded teammates take each other out first. There was no way that Jack and Grunt weren’t going to come together in an explosion of biotics and gunfire.

“On my count!” Shepard called.

“Go,” Fenris hissed.

“Five.”

Anders turned and made a break for a mound of crates on one side of the shuttle bay.

“Four.”

His armor clad feet pounded over the metal as he rounded the crate and slammed his back against it, Fenris seconds behind him.

“Three.”

Anders’ heart pounded in his chest as he listened to the others scrambling for position. He chanced a glance around the edge of the crate. Everyone else had scattered except for Shepard, who was idly checking his sniper rifle as he counted.

“What the hell is he doing just standing there in the open?” Anders whispered.

“Two.”

“Presumably? Trying to intimidate us,” Fenris answered.

“One.”

And then Shepard disappeared, cloaking himself with a shimmer.

Anders yanked his head back. “Oh, fuck.” Suddenly those thousand credits seemed further out of reach.

**

Their plan had gone to hell pretty quickly.

“Jack and Grunt will off one another, he said,” Anders muttered under his breath. “Then either Grunt will go for Garrus, or Jack will go for Miranda. All we have to do is wait, Anders.”

“Will you shut up and give me some ice,” Fenris growled. The two of them popped up behind one of the last few crates still intact simultaneously.  Anders held out his hand, a stream of ice cascading from it, stopping Grunt in mid-charge.

In retrospect, they should have foreseen how it had actually gone down. But neither of them were tacticians, not in the way the others were. Grunt, Zaeed, and Jack had taken a page from Anders and Fenris’ book and had teamed up, immediately charging after Jacob. The Cerberus agent hadn’t stood a chance, going down quickly under the onslaught. Miranda, of all people, had seen her opportunity and had taken Zaeed out, slipping behind him and shooting him in the back of the head. Anders had winced at what must have been a nasty reminder for the merc.

Everything had been chaos. The staccato of gunfire had been punctuated by exploding crates torn to pieces by powerful biotics. Above them in engineering, some of the crew had gathered to watch the show.  Anders just had to hope he hadn’t look as freaked out as he had felt. He had a reputation to maintain after all.

Shepard was all over the shuttle bay, using well-placed shots to force people into compromising positions that left them open to others. Mordin had eventually joined Miranda and Jacob in the sidelines, followed shortly after by Jack. Jack and Samara had come together in a display of biotics that’d had the hair on Anders’ arms standing on end. For a terrifying moment, he had thought they were going to tear the shuttle bay apart in their zeal, sending them all into the darkness of space.

When Garrus had taken a shot to the head, courtesy of Shepard, Anders knew that he and Fenris were running out of time. Shepard was toying with them and no one had seen Krios at all, the drell disappearing as neatly as Shepard had.

Fenris leapt over the crate and his brands ignited. He drew his sword back as he rushed towards the partially frozen krogan. His blade came down in an arc from the side, stopping just short of Grunt’s throat.

“You’re dead,” Fenris hissed.

Grunt glanced down at the ice that encased his legs, to the sword at his neck. His lips peeled back in a shark’s smile. “Heh… You were fifth on the list. Looks like I’m going to have to rethink it.”

Fenris inclined his head and turned. His eyes widened. “Anders!” he shouted.

“What? Why are you looking at me like…” Anders felt a touch on the back of his head and he slowly turned, glancing over his shoulder.

“Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess,” Samara said with a smile. “You’re dead.”

Anders swallowed. “Thanks for not… you now… actually using your biotics.”

“It wasn’t necessary,” she told him. “You were not trying to break rules the way that Jack was. She needed to be taught a lesson.”

“Yeah I—“ Anders snapped his mouth shut when he heard two pops.

Samara’s head jerked back. She frowned and rubbed at her forehead. “I seem to have erred in speaking with you for too long.” She glanced behind him. “And your lover made the mistake of standing in the open.”

**

John grinned from his vantage point in the rafters, high above the bay. He popped his rifle’s heat sink and snapped in a new one.  Garrus had been right, they all had needed this. Without the element of real danger, it had been the perfect way to get them to work together, find ways to fight an opponent of their varying talents, and to get out aggression. God knows that Shepard wasn’t going let Garrus forget anytime soon that he got a headshot off on him.

The shuttle bay was eerily quiet after the cacophony of battle and for a moment Shepard felt almost deaf in the silence. The others were lounging to one side of the bay, watching avidly for the conclusion.

Jack cupped her hands on either side of her mouth. “Kick his ass, Krios! Boss Man deserves it for hiding like a pussy and taking cheap shots!”

A few of them laughed and John’s grin widened. Uniting behind a common enemy--namely him. Now if they had only done that in the first place, the fight could have turned out much differently.

Silence was her only response and Jack scowled. “One of you do something! Stop fucking playing hide and seek!”

“Easily done,” came a voice from behind him.

John didn’t even think about it. His rifle fell from his hands to clatter to the shuttle bay floor and he turned in one fluid movement. He grabbed Thane’s pistol with one hand, while gripping the drell’s upper arm with the other. Thane’s shot went wild and John threw his weight to the side, sending them both off the rafters. The fall was short and they slammed into the top of the shuttle, the metal creaking in protest. John rolled to the side and slid off the edge of the shuttle, his hands catching on anything they could to control the speed of his descent.

His landing was less than elegant, one of his feet slipping to the side. He fell with the momentum, rolling under the shuttle.

“Sure,” Garrus called, “you make it look easy, but I would have done that with more style!”

John bit the inside of his cheek to keep from responding. _Headshot, Garrus. My rifle, your head_ , he thought instead.

It was only going to be a matter of time before Thane dragged Shepard out from under the shuttle. He couldn’t stay there forever. With a thought, his form shimmered and disappeared. Slowly, hyperaware of every sound his armor made, John crawled out from under the shuttle. He took a step forward, wincing at the pain in his hip from where he had landed on the shuttle. He felt a momentary twinge of regret for flinging a sick man off of the rafters and—

Something slammed into him from behind, knocking him down and pinning him to the floor.  Pain blossomed in his right cheek where it struck the floor, his tactical cloak falling away.

“The other added benefit,” Thane whispered in his ear, his breath ghosting along Shepard’s jaw, “of having the surgery so I can see the hanar’s bioluminescence, is that I can see through tactical cloaks.”

Had he just been feeling sorry for Krios a moment ago? “Good to know. I’ll keep that in mind.” His head snapped back, slamming into Thane’s face. The drell reared back enough for John to roll over to face him.

Blood trickled down Thane’s chin from a cut on his lip. Thane was deceptively slight. His frame was compact with muscle, lending him weight to straddle John and hold him down, his hands pressing his shoulders to the floor. “You won’t admit defeat then?”

“Nope.” John balled his hand into a fist and swung it towards the drell’s face. Thane caught that and the next punch John threw with his other hand, gripping Shepard’s fists tightly.

The two of them struggled, Thane pushing John’s fists back and John pushing them forward. At one point Thane actually chuckled, a low laugh that went straight to John’s gut.

“I think we are at an impasse,” Thane pointed out. The tip of his tongue darted between full lips, swiping at the blood there.

John fought to keep his breathing even as he tracked how wet Thane’s lips were and--  He cut the thought off. He had been down this road before. This was how it had started with Kaidan, little things that had attracted John to him—the occasional scratchiness of Kaidan’s voice, the way his uniform had hugged his body, giving John glimpses into how he would look with it off.

“A draw then?”  His voice came out steady, all the while his mind was in chaos. He could only feel Thane’s weight against him, his armor preventing him from feeling every line and curve. He was thankful for that, even as he cursed it.

Physical attraction he could deal with. He just had to tread carefully that it led to nothing more on his side. There were bigger things happening in the universe and John didn’t need to be repeating mistakes of the past.

“Agreed.” Thane moved off of Shepard and got to his feet. He held out a hand to help John up. “Who wins the bet?”

Grateful for something else to think on, John accepted the offered hand and stood. He gingerly touched his swollen cheek. “Fenris was the last standing. I shot Samara, then him.”

“Yes!” Anders cried in triumph. “I knew we could do it!”

“You didn’t do shit,” Jack shot back. “He only got it out of default. Next time, I’m gunning for both of you first.”

The tension leaked out of John as they began to trickle away, arguing good naturedly among themselves.

“Is there going to be a next time?” Thane asked.

As John watched them leave the shuttle bay, he wanted to say no. That there might not ever be another chance of this happening, that the Collectors could push them too hard, and they had to get ready for what was to come.

“Yes. We’ll do this as often as they want.”


	17. Chapter 17

Shepard was talking to a hologram.

It was a pretty in depth conversation by the look of it. Shepard had stopped by the cylinder that projected revolving advertisements.  He had waved a hand at Thane, Fenris, and Anders, indicating to go on without him and he would catch up.

Instead they had moved back a few feet to wait for him.

The Zakara Ward was a bustling center. The darkness of the ward was lit with bright neon lights, while automated shop fronts called out to passersby, beckoning them to come inside and see their wares. Several species comingled, while others stayed with their own kind, moving in suspicious packs.

The Normandy had docks near the ward and the four of them had agreed to split the cost of a shuttle to the Presidium together.

At least they would be once Shepard was finished with speaking to the ad.

“Uh…” Anders started, hesitant. “Do you think we should--I don’t know--be worried that he’s talking to an ad? I’m just sayin’…”

“No,” came Fenris’ flat response. “Someone is using the hologram to communicate with him. It hasn’t shifted from the picture of a hooded woman since Shepard stopped next to it.”

“Kasumi Goto.” Thane straightened the collar of his leather coat and smoothed his hands down the front. “She’s up in the rafters, but she’s cloaked. Shepard mentioned he was going to meet her to recruit her to the mission. It seems she found him first.”

Anders glanced fruitlessly up at the rafters above them. “How do you know it’s her? It could be a trap.”

“Because if it was an assassin up there they would have already taken a shot,” Thane answered. “Why waste this much time on a subterfuge? He’s been standing there for ten minutes. If it was me, that would have been more than enough time to have already taken a shot and been long gone. Kasumi Goto is paranoid enough to go through this trouble to communicate with him like this.”

Anders blinked at the drell slowly. “Well… That was a frightening look into your thought process.”

“Do you know her?” Fenris asked. The crowded ward was making him nervous. He had become twitchy the longer they stood in the throng, shifting from foot to foot and glancing over his shoulder as if he expected a knife to already be stuck in it.

“By reputation.” Thane was no less wary than Fenris, but he was more subtle about it. Idle mannerisms were used as a cover to catalogue who was around him and what they were doing. Anders had only picked up on it because the drell didn’t normally move so much on the Normandy, his body as calm as his voice.

Not that Thane was the most social of creatures. Anders had only spoken to him the one time, the drell preferring to keep to himself when he came out to eat in the mess. Anders was willing to bet that he listened, though, collecting information about them through their inane chatter.

“We have divergent, but parallel professions. I know of her, but we have never met,” Thane continued on.

“You know,” Anders said idly as Shepard turned from the hologram and began to walk towards them, “Cerberus was working on a cloak that was harder to track. It’s been handy that you can see through them. Let’s just hope they’re as inept with cloaking technology as they are with diplomacy.”

Thane gave him a small smile. “If that happens I’ll look forward to the challenge.”

**

The café was jammed packed by the time they had caught a shuttle and made the half an hour trip to the Presidium. Anders sighed and propped his forearms on a railing overlooking the river that flowed through the center of the presidium. “A two hour wait? For a café? What the hell?”

Fenris joined him at the railing. “I told you I was fine with eating something in the Zakara Ward. That ramen dish looked good.”

“Ramen… In Zakara…” Anders gave Fenris a side-eyed glance. “The scenery here is gorgeous and you want to go back there to eat?”

“Is that such a horrible thing?” Fenris asked.

Anders sighed. “No… I just… I wanted things to be perfect.”

“If you strive for perfection you’ll be doomed to disappointment.”

“Have you been talking to Thane or Samara?” Anders laughed but the sound lacked any feeling. “That seems like something they would say.”

They watched the Presidium below them in silence. Diplomats hurried across the multitude of bridges that connected one side of the Presidium to the other, while families with children strolled along the banks of the clear, blue river. The Presidium was a picturesque place where one could easily forget they were on a massive space station.

No wonder the café was so busy.

Damn them.

“You aren’t just upset about the café,” Fenris remarked softly, breaking the silence.

Anders blew out a steadying breath. “No… I… I wanted to take you someplace where we could talk. I thought this might be a good spot. Atmosphere and all that.”

“Oh?”

He could feel Fenris’ eyes on him, but Anders couldn’t make himself look at the elf. What had once sounded perfect in his head now seemed so trite. What was he doing? He and Fenris weren’t the sort of people that came to a place like this to have confessions of the heart. Neither one of them would have set foot on the Citadel if it wasn’t for Shepard. Anders would have been arrested on the spot for being former Cerberus, while Fenris would have had no reason to come to a crowded space station filled with the unknown.

Anders huffed a chuckle and steeled himself. “Look, this was a stupid idea. I just… I wanted to tell you that I love you, but I had no idea how to go about doing that. After sex didn’t seem right to me--I wanted to tell you during a time when you wouldn’t think it was only spur of the moment.

“But I do. Love you that is... We’re on this crazy suicide mission and we might die, and I just wanted to do something normal for once. But I think I’ve realized now that normal isn’t us, and it never will be. But I love that too, you know? I love that we’re both so fucking screwed up and how we get that about each other. How that makes me want to be better for you and myself.  I love how I can say something and you roll your eyes, but then you smile. I love how you’ve fought for your freedom. That I can say something and you’ll just know what I’m trying to convey without having to explain myself. Or that you’ll tell me to shut up when I start babbling. Not because you’re being rude, but because you get it and I don’t have to explain anymore. Like I—“

“Shut up.”

Anders snapped his mouth shut and slowly turned his head towards Fenris. He stared in astonishment at Anders, his green eyes filled with more emotion than Anders had ever seen before. It changed Fenris utterly, the naked expression on his face. He looked vulnerable and Anders thought that he was seeing a glimpse of the young elf that had once trusted people before the universe had shown him just how cruel life could be.

“I…” Fenris cleared his throat. “No one has ever…” He reached out and grasped Anders forearm, squeezing it tightly in his bare hand. Anders could feel the slightly raised lines of the eezo brands on his palm. “You are so—“ He cut himself off and turned his head sharply to gaze over the railing. His nails abruptly dug into Anders’ arm in a sharp pinch and then he let go.

“Shepard went to go and speak to someone at the Earth Embassy. Find him and then have EDI track me,” Fenris said in a rush.

He took a few steps away and Anders called out to him. “Wait! What—“

“I don’t have time to explain. Please,” he pleaded. “If you meant any of what you just said, trust me and go.”

“Give me something,” Anders begged.

“Danarius,” Fenris whispered. With that he turned and ran, disappearing into the crowd.

 **

John stormed out of the Earth Embassy. What he wouldn’t have given to have a good old fashioned door with hinges that he could have slammed behind him on the way.

“Did you see the turian ambassador use air quotes at me?” John forced his jaw to unclench as he strode down the hall. The pressure in his teeth told him he had been grinding them too hard in an attempt to hold back the angry torrent of words that had railed to be let loose.

With only Thane matching him step for step, John finally let the words reign free.

“Geth! They blamed the Citadel attack on geth. Against my better judgment I saved the Council from being annihilated and this is how they thank me, by not listening to me when I tell them something nasty is incoming and we need to be prepared.”

“But you didn’t do it for thanks, did you?”

John’s steps faltered and he came to a halt. “No… I was just doing my job.” He shook his head. “Damn it,” he whispered.

“The Council does not represent the whole galaxy--despite what they might think,” Thane reminded him softly.

“No, they don’t. If they won’t listen, then I’ll find those that will. I’m still a Spectre with all the privileges that entails.” He glanced next to him and gave Thane a grin. “Thanks.”

Thane raised one of the ridges over his eyes. “I did nothing but point out the obvious. You’re the one that must do all the work.”

John looked absently down the hall and the almost endless sea of sterile, gleaming metal that formed it. “Do you know why they made me a Spectre two years ago?”

In his periphery, he saw Thane straighten and fold his hands behind his back. John knew it was his sign that he was free and open for conversation, holstering the weapons that his hands were. He didn’t know if that was a drell affect or if it was all Thane.

“Because they thought you worthy for the position. I’ve read your service record, very impressive.”

Shepard fought not to beam at the praise as if he was some teenager whose crush just noticed he had scored a point in biotiball. He had asked Thane to come with him because he knew he was going to need the drell’s calming presence. Just by being near him made something tight inside Shepard loosen. Dealing with the Council had never been easy in the best of times.

“They did it not because I was the most qualified, but because I was the most qualified human. They made a big deal out of inducting me into the rank of Spectre. That doesn’t usually happen. I was the token human in order to pacify the Alliance.” John had known it then and he knew it to be true now.  “They have never taken me seriously and I can only hope it doesn’t cost them.”

“But yet you will still try and convince them once we return from the Omega Four Relay. You are a good man and won’t stay idle if you can prevent catastrophe.”

John laughed. “Good? If I were good I would turn the Normandy over to the Alliance and tell them all I knew about Cerberus.”

Lips twitching into a smile, Thane shook his head. “No you wouldn’t. Not until you’ve stopped the Collectors.” His smile dropped and John glanced away. “You are planning exactly that, aren’t you?”

John sighed. “The Illusive Man is up to something. I’ll play along because he has the information that I need to stop the Collectors. After that I—“

“Shepard! Oh, thank fuck I found you!”

John glanced up sharply to see Anders come running down the corridor. He skidded to a halt in front of them and leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees as he panted. “Fenris and I… He saw… Tell EDI to track him…” he gasped out.

“Woah, woah, woah!” John placed a hand on Anders’ back. He could feel the frantic thudding of his heart through his shirt. “Get your breath back and then start over.”

Anders sucked in slow, fortifying breaths through his nose before he straightened and Shepard’s hand fell away. “Fenris and I were at the Presidium near that little café that overlooks the stream. We were talking and he suddenly took off, but not before he told me to come find you. He said he saw Danarius.”

Shepard had his omni-tool out before Anders had finished speaking. “EDI I need you to pinpoint Fenris for me. He might be tracking someone through the Presidium. See if you can access the Citadel surveillance systems too.”

“I’ve been following Fenris and everyone else since you left the ship, Shepard,” EDI replied. “If you want me to access the cameras, it will require passwords that would take me some time to acquire. It would be easier if someone in your general vicinity had top tier clearance to grant me the access I need.”

John blinked at the omni-tool. A wide grin spread across his lips and the corners of his eyes crinkled. “General vicinity, eh? You wouldn’t happen to mean me and my Spectre status would you?”

“I was trying to be polite.”

“Hold on, I’ll give you full access. Just don’t tell Joker I let you into the Citadel’s security camera feeds. I’ll never hear the end of it.” John opened up the holo-keypad on his omni-tool, his fingers flying across it.

“It would seem,” Thane said, “that your status as a Spectre can also be used for something other than forcing you to deal with the Council.”

“If I can’t abuse high level clearance in order to help my friends, what good is it for?” Shepard replied.


End file.
